


For Love of a Queen

by aradian_nights



Series: How the Other Half Lives [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Luke and Leia Switched, Gen, Luke Organa, Mystery, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-17 20:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9342596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aradian_nights/pseuds/aradian_nights
Summary: Luke Organa's simple diplomatic visit to Naboo is quickly soured when he is forced to confront Darth Vader... again.





	1. Luke and Pooja

**Author's Note:**

> this one turned into a bit of a monster, as my fics tend to, so i split it up into a few chapters. i haven't written the ending yet because i'm up in the air about how i want to proceed. if this is the first fic of this au you're reading, that's totally fine! not much happens in the other two, because they're character studies. this one, on the other hand, is pure plot. 
> 
> please note i created some ocs, mainly the naboo queens. i tried my best to make them (at least one of them) an interesting character without being too involved? mainly they're a plot device because i needed a character and canon wasn't giving me one since sosha soruna was queen at the tail end of the empire and this is about ten years before that. i did steal a few things from the eu though, because.. i can?

It was winter on Naboo. The air was crisper and the roads of Theed were smoky and packed tightly with bustling crowds. Thick flakes of snow shuddered from the sky, gathering on the ornate stonework of high balconies and domes. Though there were no mountains in sight beyond the arching buildings, Luke felt so vividly that he was actually in Aldera that he tipped back his hood and dipped his head back toward the falling flakes.

"Enjoying yourself?" his companion asked, her silvery voice as stark and lovely as the bright white world around them.

Luke blinked rapidly, thick snowflakes melting on his lashes, and he turned to face her. She was shorter than him, her face round and framed by ringlets of sleek brown hair which was half caught in a sweeping array of small braided buns at the crown of her head while the rest fell free at her shoulders. A beaded golden fillet maneuvered around her curls and disappeared into the buns. She wore a velvet cloak much like his own, but while his was silver and embroidered with shining stars and white-winged birds tucked into highly stylized grapevines, hers was a deep emerald and sparsely decorated with gold threaded florals. He had not seen the dress beneath it, but it was likely just as elegant.

Pooja Naberrie offered him a steaming cup of something that smelled very sweet.

"What is this?" he asked, taking it very carefully, fearful that he might spill it on her. He had forgotten to wear gloves, and his fingers were chapped and growing numb.

"Mulled Honey Milk," Pooja said, taking a sip from her own cup and smiling warmly. "A Naboo specialty."

Luke smiled back at her and politely took a sip. It was even sweeter than it smelled, blindingly sweet and causing the tips of his fingers and toes to tingle. He couldn't be sure if it was because the drink was alcoholic or because he was freezing.

"I've never seen Naboo in the winter before," Luke admitted as Pooja hooked her arm through his and led him slowly down the cobbled street. "It's very beautiful. Reminds me of home."

"Ah." Pooja smiled, the corners of her brown eyes wrinkling in delight. "Alderaan is a gem of a planet, so I've heard. I keep telling your father that I want to visit, but I never have the time." She sighed emphatically, raising her gaze toward the flurried heavens. A few children streaked past them, snowballs dashing through the air. "The senate is so grueling, I often feel guilty for not being more understanding with my aunt when I was young."

"Your aunt?"

Pooja blinked, glancing down at him curiously. They had been acquainted for about two days, since Luke had arrived at Naboo for the coronation of Queen Mandira and Pooja had been assigned as his tour guide of sorts. He felt guilty for that job being thrust on her, especially since he had been to Naboo before and figured he could get around fine, but Eulalia had insisted and so here they were. He didn't know much about her other than she had worked with his father in the Imperial Senate.

"My mother's sister was Padmé Amidala," Pooja explained slowly, as though she was not used to providing such information. Maybe it was common knowledge here and in the senate, but to Luke it was completely new.

"I've heard of her," Luke gasped, his eyes brightening. "I'm not sure where, but the name is familiar. So she was a senator?"

"And a former queen of Naboo, yes."

"A senator _and_ a queen?" Luke whistled low, blinking down at his mulled Honey. "Ambitious. Just the thought of the senate scares me to death, and she took on all that? Your aunt must have had real guts."

Pooja laughed, and she took a sip of her Honey. "Oh," she murmured. "Yes, she was certainly gutsy. Mother says she was the most fearless, stubborn person she'd ever known. She says I take after her, but…" Pooja's soft brown eyes darkened considerably, and she pried her arm from Luke's. He watched her, a twinge of guilt and concern muddling up in his stomach as she took a big gulp of Honey and turned her face away. "Should we head back?"

Luke wanted to pry a bit more about her aunt, courtesy be damned, but he tamed his impulse and smiled at Pooja warmly. "Lead the way," he said, gesturing forward in a grand sweep.

"Troopers," Pooja greeted statically as they approached the front gate of the palace, flashing her identification. "Prince Luke and I are returning from our stroll."

"Yes," the trooper said, glancing down at his datapad, "Miss… _Senator_ Naberrie. We were informed of your absence, and you both have been summoned."

Both Pooja and Luke jolted to attention, sharing a startled glance. "By whom?" Pooja demanded, her shock melting into the calm and stately exterior of a seasoned senator. Luke marveled at her, and took a mental note. He calmed himself similarly, staring straight at the Stormtrooper's glassy white helmet and forcing himself to appear authoritative

"By Lord Vader, ma'am."

Pooja's eyes flew wide, the whites of them reflecting the salient light of the winter sun and the snowcapped rooftops of the palace. She clasped her gloved hands, her soft chin lifting high as she nodded curtly to the Trooper. The gate clicked open, and they were escorted inside the palace by another Trooper.

"Wait here," the Trooper said, depositing them in a small room down the main corridor of the lower rotunda of the palace. It looked like it had once been a room used for entertaining, but now it simply served as a sort of memorial to past monarchs of the planet. There were two lavish couches, a fireplace, and a constantly scrolling holodoc listing the names and years in office.

When the Trooper left, Pooja strode toward one of the couches and collapsed onto it, dropping her face into her hands.

"Pooja?" Luke glanced around nervously. He unhooked his cloak, shrugging it off his shoulders and tossing it over the back of the couch she had chosen. "I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding. Surely Vader will—"

"Vader doesn't _come_ to Naboo," Pooja hissed, "he shouldn't be here, he— he wasn't here for Eulalia's coronation, so it can't be that, can it?"

"Sometimes the simplest explanation is the truest one," Luke said calmly, sitting down beside her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Pooja, we've done nothing wrong. You're Naboo's senator, and I'm Alderaan's prince. He can't kill us."

She blinked twice, as though she had been in a daze and now recognized that she was not in any immediate danger. "You're right," she sighed, her shoulders slumping. "I'm overreacting. It is strange though, him being here… the Emperor makes more visits than he does, and the Emperor hates making huge public journeys."

"He was probably ordered to come here in the Emperor's place," Luke said with a shrug. "Naboo is the Emperor's homeworld, isn't it? It would look bad if the Emperor didn't seem interested in the power shift."

Pooja nodded, though she didn't look completely convinced. She unhooked her own cloak, revealing a silver dress with a high collar that billowed loosely around her upper arms and torso and cinched rather dramatically at her elbows and waist in a burgundy corset. The skirt gathered in satin folds around her legs, melting like liquid metal against her body.

Luke sat in his plain blue jerkin and dark trousers, and he wondered who would pick him as the royal one if forced to guess.

"I wonder where he is," Pooja said, glancing around the room suspiciously. "It's unlike him not to be waiting here dramatically for us."

"I've only really had one interaction with him," Luke admitted, "and that was when I was young. I hope he doesn't remember me."

Pooja snorted at that. "Did you get arrested or something?"

Luke smiled at her sheepishly. Pooja glanced at him, and suddenly whirled to face him, her tight brown curls fluttering at her shoulders.

"Really?" she whispered excitedly. "Luke, how in all the _stars_ did you manage to get yourself arrested by _Lord Vader_?"

"Well, I was eleven," he said, leaning back in his seat and glancing up at the ceiling. "I was shadowing my father in the senate in preparation for my entry into the Legislative Youth Program on Alderaan, and ended up a bit turned around while in the Rotunda. I was lost and trying to find my father, so I was in the lift, and suddenly I was on a floor I really had no business being on, hiding for no reason other than because I heard the name "Vader" and panicked, and then without any real warning he appeared in front of me. Then he sort of dragged kicking and screaming down to the nearest ISB office where I was interrogated and forced to take a test. It's all kind of hazy now."

Pooja stared at him blankly, her expression very still and very carefully devoid of a reaction. "Luke," she said cautiously, "you are telling me that you were abducted by Darth Vader when you were eleven, and… your father just let it go?"

"Well, it wasn't really an abduction," Luke muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Legally the ISB was allowed to take custody of me because I was in a restricted area, and could have overheard top secret information because I was resisting the law by hiding. Don't think I didn't try to invoke my rights, because I was well aware of them. Imperial Law is ridiculous and binding, though."

"Still!" Pooja looked angry now, her brow furrowing and her jaw set. "You were a child, and there should have been a guardian present before any sort of interrogation was set forth! Was your father even notified?"

Luke grimaced. He shook his head hesitantly. Pooja gave a disbelieving huff, and Luke sighed. "He only found me because he went searching for me when I went missing. Some Trooper let it slip that he'd seen Vader dragging me out of the building with an ISB agent. He said he'd just used deductive reasoning."

"What would have happened if he hadn't found you?" Pooja asked, clearly horrified.

Luke sat in silence. He had never thought of that before. What _would_ have happened to him if he had stayed in Imperial custody that day?

The door slid open behind them, and a shuddering breath made them both freeze.

"Eventually we would have been forced to release him," Vader said, his deep baritone seeming to strike a tremor through the floor.

They both sat, sharing a look of utter misery as Vader swept in and stood before them. He seemed to pause briefly, his helmet stuck in an odd position as he observed the two of them on the couch, Pooja in all her extravagance and Luke looking rather plain beside her.

"Were you lurking behind us the whole time, Lord Vader?" Pooja asked with a delightful amount of unrestrained bite to her tone. "Or did your name simply summon you?"

"Your conversation was being monitored," Vader said flatly. "Senator, you were acting rather distressed at the thought of this meeting. Why?"

Pooja's eyes narrowed. Luke stared up at Vader, gaping openly and unable to school his features. Was he serious? Pooja's fear when they had gotten here was a natural response to finding out they were about to be interrogated by Vader for no reason!

"Why _wouldn't_ she be distressed at the thought of being alone with one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy?" Luke asked candidly. Pooja pressed her lips together thinly.

"Luke," she murmured.

Luke frowned, but he reeled himself in. Vader's shadow was yawning over them, and the room seemed to grow oppressively small since his sudden appearance. He was so _tall_. Luke had forgotten, in the years since their first encounter. The fear in him that he had shoved onto a shelf in his heart tipped over and spilled out. It stained every surface.

"You two left the palace at 1300 hours this afternoon, correct?"

"Yes," Pooja said calmly. "Are we being interrogated? Shouldn't we be informed of our crime?"

Vader's respirator filled the silence. Luke forced himself to stare up at Vader defiantly, his gaze hard and unyielding.

"An intelligence officer was gunned down in an alley not far from where you two were taking your little stroll," Vader said.

"Well, that's awful," Pooja remarked, "but I don't see what that has to do with us."

"Eyewitnesses say that it was the ghost of Queen Amidala who killed him."

Vader's voice was different then. Luke looked up at him, puzzled, and he tried to figure out just what it was. His tone had shifted. There was an odd sort of crackle to it, and a softness to the phrasing that made Luke wonder.

Pooja, who had already sitting with impeccable posture, seemed to jolt even straighter as though a rod had been inserted into her spine. "Queen Amidala…?" Pooja lowered her eyes, her schooled expression crumbling as she tried to put the pieces together. Then, with a sudden horror, her eyes flashed up to Vader's helmet. "You think I did it."

"No one alive possesses more of a likeness to her than you, Senator."

"I was with Pooja the whole time," Luke objected, jumping to his feet. "This is an unfounded accusation, Lord Vader."

"You may be suspect yourself, Prince," Vader told him sharply. "If you were with her the entirety of your little stroll, then will you agree to a mind probe?"

Luke froze. _I could,_ he thought. _I could let him into my head. But then he'd know— he'd see. Papa. I can't_. He realized after some consideration that he had not been with Pooja the whole time anyway. She had been gone for a few minutes to get that mulled Honey. Luke swallowed very hard, and he stared into Vader's mask.

"I'll do better than that," Luke said confidently. "I'll find you the real culprit."

"Luke," Pooja said sternly, rising to her feet. "The law will work it out on its own. This is an internal affair, and I trust the authorities here on Naboo to handle it."

"That is where you are wrong, Senator." Vader did not look at her directly, which Luke found odd and incredibly uncomfortable because Vader had decided to stare at _him_ instead. "Because it was an imperial agent who was shot, and we suspect the crime was premeditated, it falls into the jurisdiction of the Empire. You will be processed and tried by Imperial Law."

Luke watched the color drain from Pooja's face. Even if she was found innocent in court, the scandal would almost certainly cause her career to take a blow. Her fear was legitimate, and Luke knew he had to help her. In his heart, something was _aching_ as though from years of disuse, and he knew, he knew, he knew as well as he knew his own name that if he didn't help her, she would die.

"I will find the culprit," Luke said firmly. "Pooja is innocent, and I swear I will prove it or so help me I'll die trying."

Vader had not taken his eyes off him. So he watched in silence, respirator hissing, and finally turned to Pooja.

"I have no reason to allow this," he said.

"Then don't allow it," Pooja replied, crossing her arms over her stomach and glaring at him. "You have the authority, and Luke is only a prince. What can he do to find a murderer?"

Vader seemed to consider that, and he nodded.

"Prince Luke," he said, "you have until Queen Mandira's coronation to deliver the true culprit to me."

"But—!" Luke stepped back in alarm. "But that's tomorrow!"

Vader merely looked at him. A chill ran through him, and his whole body seemed to feel as his fingers had when he had been out in the snow for so long without gloves. Numb and chapped, stiff from a strange and asphyxiating feeling of being submerged in a tank of black fluid.

"Your alternatives are a mind probe, or Senator Naberrie's arrest. I have no stake in either."

"I'll find her," Luke said, folding his arms across his chest and scowling up at the man. "I want your word that she will not be harmed or taken into custody."

"My word," Vader rumbled. Pooja seemed to scoff at that, though she hid it behind her hair. "Fine. But she will be placed under armed guard."

"I won't run," Pooja said flatly.

"I do not know that, Senator."

Luke glanced around him, taking in the scale of the paintings that lined the walls. "Which one is Queen Amidala?"

He had been expecting Pooja to respond, but he was shocked when Vader grabbed him by the shoulder and wheeled him around. He was pushed forward and deposited before the painting of a girl whose face was painted starkly white, as her predecessors, with a smooth line of red slashed vertically upon her bottom lip and two dots of paint at the center of both her cheeks.

Luke looked into the young woman's eyes, and for a moment he forgot where he was and what he was doing and perhaps who he was entirely. It was a strange moment, to lose oneself to a great surge of what he could only describe as unfounded nostalgia.

 _She's beautiful_ , he thought. He did not say it aloud, but he stared at the painting with an open mouth and shining eyes.

"If you two are done gaping at my aunt," Pooja said in a sharp, defensive tone, "could we continue with this? Or was that all you wanted, Lord Vader?"

Her voice was so smooth and steady, it was as though Vader had appeared to tell her of a minor inconvenience, not that she was under suspicion for treason and murder.

Vader released his shoulder, which was now rather sore, and whirled on Pooja. Luke's eyes lingered on Queen Amidala's serene young face, round and stolid beneath the white paint that caked her nose and cheeks and forehead.

"There will be consequences," Vader rumbled. His words seemed to echo emptily in the vastness of this room, rolling over Pooja and Luke in a wave of malice. "If no one else can be held accountable, then you will die, Senator Naberrie."

Luke tore his gaze away from the languid brown eyes of Queen Amidala, and he turned to look at Pooja. She was standing tall, with her round face held high and her brown eyes valiantly bright and unyielding. Luke could see, suddenly, why Vader seemed so certain that Pooja had been the one who had done it. Her serenely defiant expression seemed to mirror the painting of the young queen behind him.

"Sentenced to death for deigning to resemble my dead aunt," Pooja drawled. Her shoulders jerked toward her chin as she scoffed. "What a way to go. Will my family be allowed to keep my remains?"

"Pooja!" Luke stepped forward, cutting in front of Vader in what may have been a rather dramatic sweep of his arms. "You are not going to die. I am going to settle this whole thing, find the real culprit, and clear your name. Okay?"

Pooja looked at him, and the defiant coolness of her gaze softened into that languid look he had noted in the painting of Queen Amidala.

"Okay, Luke," she said gently.

But it wasn't okay. Because she did not believe he could do it. He realized it— he _felt_ her resignation, clear and sharp as the winter wind outside the palace, and it hurt.

It hurt because in his heart, he feared his own vulnerability. He didn't need a droid to tell him the odds of finding the true culprit was slim, especially in such a short amount of time.

"You will stay in this room," Vader told Pooja. She did not even look at him as she nodded mutely. Vader turned his helmet toward Luke in a sort of cold consideration. And then he left. The air in the room seemed to leave with him.

Luke found himself dropping onto the couch, feeling rather drained and shivery, as though some sort of fever had rushed him and he was only now feeling its effects. Pooja stood quietly in the middle of the room, her head bowing and her glossy curls curtaining her face.

"That was… different," she murmured.

"What?" Luke forced himself back to his feet just as Pooja collapsed onto a couch, her face once more in her hands.

"Why would he allow this?" She shook her head furiously, dragging her hands through her hair and exhaling sharply. "It makes no _sense_. This is Darth Vader! Ruthless, cold blooded killer. Giving me a chance to prove my innocence… even such a slim one… it's rather out of character, don't you think?"

"I don't really know him well enough to judge," Luke admitted, sitting down beside her. "But… Pooja, does it really matter? A chance to live is a chance to live! All I have to do is figure out who really did it."

Pooja sighed heavily and dropped her hands into her lap. She smiled at him. "Are you detective now, Prince Luke?"

"Nope," he said brightly. "But I'm confident enough in my intuition that I think I can save you. So have faith in me, okay?"

Pooja looked at him, and her eyes glimmered with the faintest bit of hope. She took his hand, and said very somberly, "Please tell my sister what happened. Ryoo Naberrie— she's a historian, she'll be able to tell you everything and more about Aunt Padmé. Start there."

Luke nodded. "You can count on me," he swore to her, squeezing her hand tightly and rising to his feet. He looked her in the eye, and he saw the terror that lingered there. She really believed she was going to die. "Don't you dare despair. You are a senator, the niece of a senator and a queen, and you know in your heart that you are innocent. And even if you were not innocent, have _faith_ , Pooja Naberrie, that you are meant to do incredible things and so your life cannot simply stop short. Don't let it. Keep clinging to it."

Pooja's eyes widened. She simply stared after him as he slipped his hand from hers, gathered his cloak in his arms, and exited the room.


	2. Luke and Cassian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter features one named oc, a character from rogue one, and two minor characters from the ahsoka novel. i'll be honest, i don't like writing ocs. hence why i grabbed three random characters from canon who could fit into the roles i needed for this chapter. the fact that i needed the queen is on me, i could have found a way to work around it and cut them out, but i didn't and here we are. i'm not all that happy with it. or this chapter really. next chapter i like a lot better though, so! we're pushing forward!

Luke did not, in fact, start with Ryoo Naberrie. He stood in a dimly lit alley, Stormtroopers flanking him, while an ISB agent holographically recreated the murder that happened two hours before by digitally constructing the victim and culprit. An indistinct cloaked figure approached their dead agent, spoke to one another almost amiably, before the cloaked figure yanked a blaster from beneath their cloak and put a bolt through the intelligence agent's forehead.

Luke stood, the seam of his bantha leather gloves between his teeth, and he said, "Can I see that again?"

So the ISB agent played it again.

"Has this man…" Luke waved at the ISB agent to pause the holo. The image of the dead man was ripped directly from his own face— this was, after all, a recreation of events based on eyewitness accounts. "Has he ever met anyone from the Naberrie family?"

"The Naberries?" The ISB agent frowned. "I can't be certain. They're a very influential family, but Agent Voatt was never interested in charity galas and his job pertained more to the intelligence aspect of the organization than the security, so the senator never met him. To my knowledge."

"Hm." Luke leaned back and frowned. "These eyewitness accounts all line up right? Each of them said that Voatt and the killer stood and talked for a few minutes? Or seemed to be talking?"

"The woman," the agent said, pointing to the cloaked figure, "or Amidala's ghost, as they've started calling her, spoke to him for around two to five minutes before shooting him. We don't know what they discussed."

Luke knew he would have to speak to the witnesses if he wanted to learn anything about the culprit. The ISB would not allow him to interview any of them, however, because he had no Imperial rank nor authority on Naboo. Being a prince and a senator's son didn't mean all that much to Imps outside of Alderaan and Imperial Center, and he had not been to Coruscant in years.

"A tiny woman with brown hair and a blaster," Luke muttered. "How hard can that be?"

The ISB agent merely watched him, his hands folded behind his back. "Your Highness," he said carefully, "why are you so interested in helping us catch this killer, may I ask?"

Luke blinked, and he offered the man a small smile. "I'm doing my friend a favor," he said. "Anyway, where did Voatt like to go? What were his haunts? Maybe if I can figure out what kind of guy he was, I can figure out who'd want to kill him."

"A bit of a stretch, Your Highness," the ISB agent said amusedly, "but if you're looking for his haunts as you put it, you may want to check Ruuni's place."

"Ruuni's," Luke repeated. He smiled at the man with genuine enthusiasm. "Thank you! Is that a cantina, or something?"

The ISB agent's mouth twitched into something resembling a smile. "Or something," he replied cryptically.

Luke shrugged. "I'll leave you to this, then," he said, waving to the blood stained pavement and stalking past the Stormtroopers. "Sirs." They responded as expected by not responding at all, and Luke sighed. This was even harder than he'd imagined, and he'd imagined some tough shit. He _had_ to find this woman, though.

It was so bitterly cold that his nose had begun to run. He ducked under an awning and rubbed it irritably. The snow that had fallen earlier in the day was gray slush on the cobblestones, and the city was still bustling even this close to night fall. Luke's fingers were itching for his comm, thinking about the likelihood of finding this murderer and knowing in his heart that he was an idealistic fool. If nothing else… couldn't his father…? No, he couldn't involve his father in this.

Fulcrum?

Luke's memory of the woman was hazy. They had spent nearly six months together, but it felt like so long ago, and it had been all so perfunctory. She'd been his guard for a spell, taught him some Shili rituals to help him relax, but really for the most part she had simply sat and talked with him. He remembered the bitter disappointment that rang through his twelve year old heart when she'd smoothed back his hair, kissed his forehead, and said, "If I could stay on Alderaan forever, nothing living could make me happier, but my time is up. You don't need me anymore, little prince."

He had not spoken to her in about a year— not since his last birthday, when he'd turned fourteen and she'd commed him excitedly to tell him that fourteen was a _great_ age and that you could meet someone who might change your whole life. Luke had met Queen Eulalia when he'd been fourteen, and he did not consider that life changing. Fulcrum had been in the Outer Rim on a planet called Thabeska, and though she had not said what she'd been doing, Luke knew enough about her now to know it was some sort of Rebel activity.

Before he could reach for his comm, however, he felt the jab of a blaster barrel poking against his spine. He froze.

A very small, controlled voice hissed at him, "Into the alley, Organa."

Luke glanced around him, seeing with some astonishment that there were no Stormtroopers in sight. Of course when they were actually needed they weren't there. What a useless joke they were. So he turned very slowly, never catching sight of his assailant, and wandered into the alleyway beside the building he had stopped by.

He briefly wondered if he could reach the blaster beneath his cloak without tipping them off.

Suddenly he was whirled around, and he blinked confusedly downwards. His assailant was so small that they came up to about his chin. Their boyishly round face and hair suggested they were a young boy, but there was something about their face that rung the chime of Luke's long term memory. Their hard set, thinly lidded black eyes, button nose, and pouty lips reminded him of someone else.

Luke blinked once more, and he tilted his head. "Eulalia?"

The young queen held her blaster levelly against his chest, though she reeled back a bit in shock. She composed herself quickly. "Prince Luke," she said, her voice icy and low. "You understand that I could not contact you under normal circumstances."

"Yes, I get that." Luke smiled at her weakly. "What I don't get is the blaster being waved about like you're some kind of mercenary. Eulalia, what on earth are you doing?"

"Don't call me that here," she hissed, pushing him back further into the alley. "You imbecile. Call me Lian or Yule, but don't call me that."

"Yule." Luke glanced at her, and he nodded. "Please put the blaster away, Yule. I'm not your enemy."

She squinted at him. With a steady huff, she holstered he blaster. Luke noticed she was wearing loose beige trousers tucked into worn, sturdy brown boots, and an airy white shirt with a black vest thrown over it. No one would every guess that this waif of a mercenary was actually the Queen of Naboo.

"Why is Vader keeping Pooja Naberrie in the Room of Reverence?" Yule demanded. "What happened while you were with him? What did he say?"

"You're the queen, Yule," Luke said, unable to keep the genuine shock from leaking into his tone. "You could have asked Pooja herself."

"I am a lame duck of a queen, and Vader has ordered the 501st not to let anyone in or out of the room except for him and him alone." Yule looked miserable. Her round face was stark and lined with exhaustion, the only real indication of her age. Without her ornately done up hair and makeup, she looked rather weary and resigned. Luke had only ever known her as Queen Eulalia, silver-tongued and eager, but he had never really stopped to consider the girl beneath the makeup. This girl. Lian. Small and reckless and desperate. She looked up at Luke, and her thin brows furrowed. "Can't you tell me anything? I have to warn Mandira if a scandal is about to break the day of her coronation."

Luke sighed. He nodded emphatically, and he glanced around. "I don't suppose you know any cantinas we could get lost in?" he joked.

Yule quirked a brow at him. Luke watched her smirk, and she stalked forward down the dim alley, waving at him to follow.

"Where are your handmaidens?" Luke asked suddenly, glancing around the darkening street. The streetlamps were buzzing into life, twilight sky folding out above them. Flurries of snow still traveled lightly overhead.

"Guarding Lua," Yule said with a faint twist of her lips. "They're used to this. I've been a rather selfish queen, if I was to be honest."

Luke watched her curiously. She walked with a completely different gait now that she was out of the palace, a quick and easy saunter in comparison to her slow and elegant steps beneath the layers of traditional dress. Luke was once again reminded of watching a young boy who wanted to mimic an older man.

"Your rule has been as peaceful as possible with the Empire breathing down you neck," Luke pointed out. "There hasn't been many insurgencies within the city— besides the incident with the Gungans, but that was years ago. You weren't a bad queen."

Yule did not look at him. Instead she approached a building that was pulsating with music and laughter, and she passed through the front door without any trouble from the Falleen bouncer. "He's with me," she said, waving back at him offhandedly. The Falleen man watched Luke intensely, his eyes narrowing a bit as Luke shuffled in quietly behind Yule.

It was loud. Luke had to stick close to Yule's back to avoid crashing into any of the crowded bodies that had taken to the dance floor. Yule collapsed into a booth, and Luke slid in across from her.

"Talk," she said.

Luke stared at her, and he glanced around him worriedly. Then he nodded. "Pooja's been accused of murdering an ISB agent," he sighed. Yule's eyes widened, but she did not react much beyond that. "I don't understand it. There's no _proof_ that it was Pooja, but there's also no proof that it wasn't, and Vader is convinced… I don't know why. I guess whoever did it looked like Queen Amidala, and Vader said no one in the galaxy looks more like her than Pooja, but it doesn't add up. I mean, I was with her all day!"

Yule sighed. She dragged her hands through her closely cropped black hair, and she watched Luke with a dull look in her eyes. "So you're trying to find the real murderer?" She leaned back in her seat, her shoulders stiff and squared. "How long do you have?"

"Until Mandira's coronation."

Eulalia stared at him blankly. She turned and raised her hand toward the bar, tossing some credits onto the table as she did so.

"I can do it," Luke gasped. "I'm sure of it. I just need a real lead."

"Luke," Eulalia said, taking the cocktail from the serving droid, "you are absolutely mad. A _day_ to solve a murder when a suspect is already in custody? Do you understand how impossible that is?"

"I never took you for a pessimist."

"I'm a _realist_ , Luke." Yule shook her head and downed her glass. "You are not going to simply stumble upon the real culprit overnight. You are not a detective, and this is not a game. This is Pooja's life you are gambling with!"

"I know that!" Luke flinched. He had never heard Eulalia yell before, and despite her small stature she was a rather intimidating person. Her black eyes were fixed upon his face, unblinking and unyielding. "Of course I know that! But it was the only chance I had to keep Vader from taking her into custody right then and there! At least now we have a chance to save her, right?"

"A chance that should be filled with getting her _out_." Yule stood up sharply, leaving Luke to gape at her. "Stay here."

"What?" Luke frowned deeply, and he leaned forward as the tiny queen disappeared into the crowd. "Yule— Yule, _what_ —?"

The music was vibrant and upbeat, the sound of a few different types of drums from a few different types of worlds meshing nicely with classical and new age instruments. Luke himself had learned a few string instruments during his various stages of etiquette training, and he caught onto a few familiar tunes as he waited for Yule to return. At one point, about two songs after Yule had disappeared, he heard a few startlingly familiar notes. He sat up straight and turned towards the band. A Twi'lek girl was plucking at the synthetic cords of an instrument his father had taught him to play, the viol— the notes were so familiar to him, he could almost hear his father humming the tune.

He stood and wandered over to her. The band paid him no notice, though the lone player glanced up at him. Her gold eyes were bold. She continued to pluck at the strings of the instrument tucked beneath her chin.

"That song," he said softly. "It's a lullaby I heard when I was younger. May I…?"

The Twi'lek shot him a look. She studied him for a moment, her fingers pausing on the strings, and then she snorted a small scoff. "You play?" she said, her Rylothi accent faint enough that it was clear she had been away from home for a long time, but pronounced enough that Luke knew it had not been long enough for her to forget her roots.

"Not as well as you, I'm sure," Luke piped up. The Twi'lek girl blinked at him, and burst into a bright fit of laughter.

"You are very bad at flirting," she said, handing off the instrument and bow to him.

Luke smiled at her sheepishly, and he shrugged. He glanced at the band, who were watching him expectantly. Others were peering at them, likely wondering why the music had stopped, which made Luke mildly uncomfortable. He didn't want to gain any unwanted attention, not when he had so much riding on him.

He tucked the instrument beneath his chin, and very cautiously began to pluck at the synthetic cords. The sound was both timid and brilliant, a mix of new age synthetic strings and echoic technology and old school physics. Luke had once tried to build one, but he could not get the physics down. The physics of instruments were different than the physics of droids, which was based on the study of human motion, and speeders, which was essentially rocket science. It was both too simple and too smart, especially given it was a piece of hybrid technology.

After he'd been plucking at the strings for a solid few ticks, one of the drummers began to join in with a soft beat. Luke ceased plucking at the strings, and raised the bow to them. He made eye contact with one of the pipers, and they began playing at the same time. Then the rest of them joined in, the sound of the song unfurling in a soulful sort of breath, like a deep exhale. The melody rose and fell, and Luke closed his eyes as he imagined his father's hand gliding the bow across the strings. The end of the song was more mournful, but the instrument in his hands willed itself to sing faster, the strings humming quick and breathless as though in desperation.

And then it ended.

Luke lifted the instrument from his chin, his chest tight, and he smiled. He could see his father's shining eyes, the bow drooping in his hand as the last shivering note died in the air.

When he opened his eyes, Eulalia was standing there. Her sharp eyes were difficult to read, but she did not seem all that angry. Still, Luke felt ashamed, and he handed the instrument back to its Twi'lek owner.

"You were not half bad," the Twi'lek girl said, clapping along with the crowd. "Who taught you to play?"

Luke rubbed his cheek sheepishly, finding it rather warm. "My father," he said.

"How sweet."

"What about you?" he asked, unable to contain his natural curiosity. He was always interested in learning more about people and where they came from, especially non-human sentients.

The Twi'lek girl smiled tightly. "My master taught me," she admitted.

Luke stared at her. He searched her face, which was blue and faintly freckled. She was young, probably as young as him, with a pretty face and gold eyes. Her earcones poked out beneath the black straps wound expertly around her lekku.

"You're a slave?" he asked, finally composing himself. He knew that the Empire made slaves of many different peoples, particularly poor Twi'lek women, but he had never actually _met_ one.

"Formerly," the girl said, looking very proud of this achievement. Rightfully so. "I was freed by my master's son some years ago. He died, and so as he was dying I played him a song he liked. His son was very touched, because he freed me the next day, and now I get to play music at cantinas instead of dancing to it." She beamed at him. "Not such a bad life."

Luke smiled back at her warmly. "No," he said. "Not so bad at all. Thank you for letting me play."

"No problem." She jerked her chin at Yule. "Your friend is waiting. Goodbye, then."

Luke was smiling when he returned to Yule's side. The queen had her arms folded across her chest, and she studied his face closely.

"What?" he asked, his face warming up again.

"Your father taught you our music?" She frowned, and then she shrugged. "I must say, I grow fonder of the Viceroy of Alderaan each day."

"That song is Nubian?" Luke gaped. "I— well, I suppose that makes sense. I'd never heard it anywhere but in my nursery, so I'd assumed it was Alderaani."

Yule barked a laugh at him. "That was the Lament of Amidala," she told him curtly. "As Nubian as a song can get without delving into ancient tragedies, I'm afraid."

"Amidala?" Luke rubbed his head and suppressed a groan. "Really? That woman keeps popping up everywhere."

"She's much beloved," Yule said sharply, her eyes darting toward Luke's face in a fierce glare. "We will find the killer who dared to use her name for such a crime, but that day will not be today. We have to save Pooja before we can find the criminal."

"I take it that's why you disappeared for twenty minutes?"

Yule rolled her eyes, and she gestured for him to follow her. He was led back to the table they had shared, only the booths were now full. Yule squeezed in beside a human boy and Luke did the same, tucking himself awkwardly next to an aging Togruta.

"Who is this?" asked a young man with warm skin and a lilting accent. His tired brown eyes scanned Luke's face, and then his cloak, with some degree of suspicion that Luke knew he was trying to subdue. He realized he would have to play the diplomat here, which was a draining thought.

"Prince Luke Organa," Yule introduced, watching the young man straighten considerably, his eyes widening as he took Luke in with a new sort of enthusiasm. "This man is a pilot ferrying these passengers to the Outer Rim. He is willing to take anyone. Especially fugitives from the Empire."

"Wow." Luke folded his hands on the table and smiled at the man genially. "How much is that going to cost?"

"I am not a mercenary," the man said irritably, his expression wrinkling in disgust. "Despite being acquainted with this one—" He made an offhanded wave at Yule's face. Luke quirked an eyebrow at her. "—I do not do the things I do for money. I'm sure you of all people can understand that sentiment, Prince _Organa_."

Luke's eyes narrowed. He leaned back, lying his palms flat on the table and studying the man closely. He had dark hair and eyes, a neatly trimmed beard and a fresh haircut— he was an expert at blending into his surroundings with an unassuming face and a vague sort of charm.

In a soft, offhand tone, Luke said, "The sky is dark and our path unclear."

The man did not miss a beat in replying in the same level tone, "But the stars always shine clear on Naboo."

Luke couldn't help but smile, leaning forward and whispering breathlessly, "Did my father send you?"

"I'm sure Senator Organa has more important things to do than deal with some washed out pilot," the man murmured, picking up his glass for the first time and glancing into it somberly. "These two would know the details better. They have actually met the person who sent us here."

Luke glanced at the others, who he had forgotten about until now. The aging Togruta man was missing part of one of his lekku, and his face was weathered and sun-beaten. He watched Luke with curious eyes which twinkled beneath the shadow of his montrals. His curiosity was welcome in comparison to the pointed, striking brown eyes of his human companion. Her long black hair hung loosely about her shoulders, which were dark and bare. Her dark shirt hung off her shoulders and tucked loosely into her high trousers. She'd been thumbing her blaster the entire time she had been sitting there, Luke knew, but he had not taken much heed.

"Introductions are in order, I think," Luke said, smiling an easy smile and pressing his hand to his chest. "I'm Luke, as you know. I'm trying to find a murderer."

"Cassian," the human man stated briskly, leaning forward with a finger in the air, "and what do you mean, a murderer? I was told you need transport."

Luke's eyes flashed to Yule's in alarm. She merely sat there, her lips thin and mute.

"My… my friend was accused of murder," Luke said, blinking up at Cassian's face. "I've been given a day to prove her innocence— I'm sure I can do it, I just… Yule, what's this about?"

Yule rested her chin in her hands, and she shrugged. "You don't have the time, Luke," she said simply. "Cassian has the resources to make sure Pooja is safe and well provided for. Isn't that enough?"

"No— what? No!" Luke shook his head furiously. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was the _queen_! She had appointed Pooja to the senate herself, and suddenly she was just giving up on her? Luke couldn't imagine looking into Pooja's eyes and telling her she had to flee her planet— flee for her life and go into hiding. Luke tried to imagine being ripped from his home, from his station, from his birthright so abruptly, and his heart ached in wild empathy. He could not do it. He could not let Pooja suffer this fate. "Let me at least _try_!"

"No, Luke," Yule said gravely. "If we don't act now to ensure her escape, she will die. You must know that."

"I recognize the danger, yes," Luke said fiercely, his face growing warm from anger and shame, "but I promised Pooja I would find the real killer, and I intend to keep that promise."

"You are young," Yule snapped, her voice lowering into the gravelly queenly monotone she possessed only when making an address. "So I will excuse your naivety. However, as an outsider you have no idea what this means. You do not understand the risks that I am taking for Pooja, the risk I am putting Naboo in for even sitting here right now. You are not king yet, child, so listen to me well. Some battles are lost before they have even begun."

"Maybe so," Luke retorted thinly, "but that doesn't mean they aren't worth fighting."

Yule closed her eyes, and she leaned back. Luke stared at her, searching her face wildly, and he scoffed.

"I convinced Vader to suspend justice for a day," Luke said ruefully, "but somehow I fail to get through to you, Eulalia."

Cassian did not look so surprised that the name, but the other two glanced at each other in alarm.

"I don't know what you said to Vader," Yule said smoothly, "but you know as well as I that he expects you to fail. It's a wonder that he is keeping his word at all."

Luke pressed his lips together thinly. It _was_ a bit strange. The entire situation was growing more and more surreal. He recalled the terror of being snatched by Vader, not for the first time, only to be planted in front of a painting of a woman who was long dead and yet… and yet anyone who stepped foot on this planet seemed to become absolutely enthralled with her.

Even Luke was beginning to feel like he owed something to this dead queen.

"Then we compromise," Luke said firmly. Yule watched him dully, and raised an eyebrow at him. Luke glanced around the table, and he took a deep breath. "You _know_ I won't give up. I refuse. You are not my queen, and for the sake of our friendship I must say I'm glad for that. Someone has to save Pooja. We both want to, but our ways of going about it are vastly different. So we compromise. You make the preparations to rescue Pooja in case I fail in finding the real culprit."

Yule blinked. She leaned back in her booth, and she nodded very slowly. "I can accept that," she said.

Luke relaxed, sliding his hands into his lap and blinking a few times. His uncompromising faith that he _could_ save Pooja was only strengthened by this ordeal. There was nothing wrong, he tried to tell himself, with having a contingency plan.

The whole galaxy could look upon him and expect him to fail, and he would drag himself to the precipice of victory to prove them wrong. He sat among friends, among strangers, and he trusted in them to do what needed to be done if his faith ran out. That was enough.

"Thank you," he said quietly, glancing around the table with a genuine gratitude. "Thank you all. If you ever are in need of aid, don't hesitate to call me."

"Are you not putting your family," the human woman said suddenly, "your _world_ at risk by sitting here and conspiring with us?"

"Conspiring?" Luke repeated her, his voice softening innocently. "We're only having a polite conversation about what happened to that ISB officer. I don't see why anyone would be in danger because of something so simple as that."

The woman's lips quirked into a tight smirk, and she leaned back into her seat. Cassian glanced at her curiously, and he tilted his head. "Speaking from experience, Hedala?"

Hedala's dark eyes flashed to his face fiercely. "I only tolerate you because you are my ride, Andor," she said coldly. "Do not think we are friends."

"Do the Fardis truly have friends?" Cassian's finger drummed against his glass idly as he brought it to his mouth. "This is news to me."

Hedala nearly jumped to her feet, but her Togruta companion caught her by the shoulder and steadied her. "Hedala," he warned her sharply. His voice was thin and raspy, worn away by years of use.

"If I may ask before I go," Luke piped up, smiling thinly as all eyes flickered to his face, "what is your story? Is there any particular reason you've all been lumped together?"

Hedala scoffed. "Bad luck," she said bitterly. "Ashla would call it destiny, though."

"Ashla would," the Togruta agreed, smiling fondly. He turned to look down at Luke. "My name is Selda, your Highness. I am no one special, but circumstance has thrown us all together. I accompanied Cassian to retrieve Hedala from Thabeska because of a mutual friend. I suppose to the Fardis, my face is a bit friendlier than his."

"My face is handsomer, though," Cassian pointed out cheekily. Selda glanced at him, and he offered a small smile.

"Thabeska," Luke repeated thoughtfully. He studied Selda weathered face, his facial markings stretched over his nose and beaten into the lines of his eyes. He wanted to ask. He wanted so badly to let the name Fulcrum slip and see where the dice fell.

But Luke couldn't. He thought of Fulcrum's careful resistance to accompanying him outside the palace, how she often adorned elaborate headscarves and cowls that covered not only her montrals but her facial markings when she traveled outside the safety of his or his parents' chambers, or how she had once smoothed back his hair and admitted to him that Fulcrum was not her name at all, but it was not safe to tell him what her name was yet, and Luke needed to keep visualizing the sturdy snowcapped peaks of Aldera's surrounding mountain range.

Hedala's sharp black eyes had landed pointedly on his face. "You know Thabeska?" she demanded.

"I've heard of it." Luke kept his voice level as he smiled politely at the woman. "Was there a reason you left? It clearly means a lot to you."

"You're an awfully nosy prince, aren't you?" Hedala sniffed. Yule met her gaze over the table. "And don't get me started on _you_ , Yule. A queen pretending to be some beggar boy— honestly, don't you think it cruel to fool us like that?"

"It will only be a disguise for a day more," Yule replied calmly. "After Mandira's coronation, Lian Julles Eulalia will be a figment of history. Good riddance. She was an awful queen."

"You weren't a bad queen, Yule," Luke sighed. He wanted to reach out and pat their hand assuringly, but he didn't think it appropriate.

Yule rested their chin in their hand and eyed him dully. "Take my advice, Organa," they said thinly. "When you are king, do not lose sight of who you are beneath the formalities and the duties and the compromise. You are too kind to lose your heart to the burden of a crown."

Luke sat very quietly as he processed their words. Small, soft-spoken Eulalia who had always had a smile for him beneath the sheen of red painted lips, looked so very cold and jaded now. Their boyish hair fell limply at their ears, and their loose clothing was clearly worn and well used, a testament to how long Eulalia had been using this disguise. If it was even a disguise at all. Luke had known Eulalia's makeup and dress were traditional, but he had not assumed the queen herself was just a character Lian Julles played when necessary.

"Is Yule your preferred name?" Luke asked them curiously. "Or do you like Lian better?"

Yule blinked at him, their mouth falling open without a sound coming out. They seemed rather shocked, and so they leaned back and shook their head. "I don't care what you call me," they said.

"Then I'll call you Lian in person," Luke said, "and Yule when I comm you. Which I assume I'll have the opportunity to, considering your interest in my father's work." Luke shot a pointed look at Cassian, who was studying the two of them with vague interest.

"I have not had the opportunity to meet much royalty in my life," Cassian admitted, "but you two are not what I expected."

"Well, he is young," Yule said, "and I am tired. Luke, you might want to check the Gallery for clues. If the real culprit is truly connected to Queen Amidala, you might find something of use there."

"The Gallery?" Luke was reminded of the room of paintings that Pooja had been locked in, and he nearly shuddered. He could almost hear Vader's rattling breath hissing at his ear.

"A museum located down in the third quarter." They looked to Cassian, raising a brow. "Why don't you escort him, Andor? You have been lurking around Naboo long enough to know where you are going."

"I'm flattered you should think so," Cassian said dryly. He glanced at Luke, his expression difficult to read and his eyes drooping heavily. "The Gallery might just be closed by now. Do you still want to go?"

"Yes," Luke said firmly.

Cassian shrugged, and he threw back the rest of his drink and gathered up his jacket. "Well," he said, "alright then. Hedala, Selda, I will meet you two back at the ship. Yule— good luck with that ruling a planet thing, I hope it works out for you."

Yule frowned, but did not respond snappily as Luke might have in their position. Hedala and Selda merely watched as he shrugged on his coat and gestured for Luke to follow him. Luke jumped up, waving goodbye to the rest of the table, and rushed after him.

Cassian left the cantina silently, moving into the darkened streets of Theed with a slow and easy gait. Luke stepped up beside him, snow crunching beneath their boots, and he glanced at the man's face curiously. In the shadows cast by the streetlamps, he seemed older than he'd looked in the cantina, and the lines on his face had deepened considerably. He did not speak or look at Luke directly. Whatever light-hearted attitude he had had in the cantina had been washed away by the biting winds of winter.

"How old are you?" Luke asked him suddenly. Cassian did not look at him. His dark eyes flitted up at a building, never pausing in his step.

"I am twenty-one standard years," Cassian said, his voice soft and his accent heavier. Now that they were away from the people and noise that had filled the cantina. "And you, your Highness?"

"Just Luke is fine," he said sheepishly, his face growing warm as the man shot him a glance that could be simple curiosity or genuine irritation. "But, um, I'm fifteen."

Cassian exhaled through his nose, blinking up at the dark sky. "You were born with the Empire, then," he said.

"Just about," Luke admitted. "We celebrate my birthday two days after Empire Day— though I'm not really sure if that's my real birthday or not."

"Oh?"

"I'm adopted," Luke laughed, rubbing the back of his neck and finding himself staring at his feet. "I know nothing of where I came from before Alderaan."

"Does that bother you?"

Luke paused, and the snow beneath him spit against his trousers. Cassian kept going a few more steps before turning back to him. Snow was swirling in the cascade of white light drawn upon the road from the streetlamps. Cassian's face was half obscured by his fur-trimmed hood, and his dark eyes looked hollow in the shadows.

"I don't know," Luke said, his voice wavering thinly. "Should it?"

Cassian closed his eyes and turned fully to face him. There was snow in his hair, melting in the dark waves that had clearly been hacked hurriedly for convenience. He said calmly, "I cannot decide who you are for you, little Prince. It is not a choice. You are what your family made you. That is all you can be."

"I don't believe that, though," Luke gasped, taking a step forward. "I mean… I am very much what my parents have given me, but they did not _make_ me. I like to think I am in control of who I am, don't you?"

Cassian took a deep breath, which shuddered softly against the subtle whistle of the wind and the distant chatter of gatherings dotting the city. He pushed his hair from his eyes and bit his lower lip as he nodded slowly, as if coming to an understanding.

"You are young," Cassian told him. "You are young, and you don't know yet what war can make of you. If you are lucky, you will never know. But one day you will look at who you are, and who you have been, and you will understand that your actions are linked intrinsically to where you come from. Even you, a boy with no past, have Alderaan."

Luke wanted to object, that he _did_ know war, and that he wasn't so young as not to understand the implications of it. But his words died in his mouth, crumbling like ash, because he looked into Cassian's face and saw someone so much older. Decades had passed in his eyes, as though he had been worn away by the ceaseless battery of so many fires and so many blaster bolts and so many screams— and Luke, who had grown up in the luxury of a palace with white satin dressing gowns and crystal mobiles and the picturesque mountain range rising to the tips of the horizon outside his window each morning, he could not claim to know such suffering as him.

So instead he said, "Where are you from?"

And Cassian blinked at him, the dark pits of his eyes softening but never quite catching the light. "Fest," he said.

"Fest," Luke repeated, closing his eyes and trying to recollect any knowledge he had of such a planet. It did not _sound_ familiar, and was therefore not much of a militaristic of political base of operations. It probably was about as mundane as Lothal or Dantooine, so it was likely in the Outer Rim. "That is… a rather rocky planet, isn't it? A lot of snow."

"Not unlike Alderaan in that regard," Cassian replied with a slight twist of his lips. He glanced around him, the ancient walls of Theed rising up at every turn. "Or here, if I'm to be honest."

Luke laughed. "Naboo is more of a water world than a mountain one," he said brightly, stepping up beside Cassian and taking steady steps forward. "But isn't it pretty?"

Cassian scoffed. "It is certainly something," he said. By the soft bite of his tone, muffled vaguely by his accent and by his mouth pressing into the fur of his jacket, he certainly had no love of Naboo and would probably be perfectly content to watch it burn.

Luke would gladly argue with him that the home of a despot does not reflect the despot's values, but he knew the topic would not come up.

He wondered what his father was doing. He imagined his broad shoulders and bowed head, the light of his desk lamp spilling shadows over the study's floor. Homesickness was so much a part of Luke at this stage in his life that he often reconsidered and rearranged his entire life plan on the whim of a heartache. Like he could be in his ship, casually making another mercy run to some Rim World, going on forty standard days without seeing the blinding white peaks of the mountains surrounding Aldera, and suddenly Luke had reconsidered his whole existence and decided that someone else could be Alderaan's senator, and clearly his mother needed him at home so he could learn the ins and outs of ruling an entire world.

But then, like now, he came to his senses and realized that the galaxy was just too vast and too broken to sit inside a palace all day and see nothing of it, to _do_ nothing of it. What a lousy king he would be if he inherited a throne and had done nothing to deserve it.

"Do you know my father well?" Luke asked Cassian after a few minutes of silence. Cassian glanced at him.

"No," he said simply. He pulled his hood over his head as a pair of Stormtroopers neared them. He looked down at Luke thoughtfully, and snatched his hood and tugged it over his face as well. Luke stumbled a bit, half blinded by the heavy silver velvet, and he collided with the man's arm.

"You two," said one of the troopers, his tinny voice echoing in the cold night air. "Stop."

Luke blinked as Cassian's arm jutted out, preventing him from moving any farther and shoving him behind his back as though to shield him. Luke gaped, not because Cassian was protecting him but Cassian already had a hand on his holstered blaster. _Is he kidding?_ Luke thought numbly. _And Father says that I am rash and quick to a fight!_

"Identification," the trooper said flatly, holding out his hand.

Before Cassian could retrieve his blaster, Luke ducked under his arm and threw back his hood. "Gentlemen!" he greeted in a great puff of breath. "I am Prince Luke Organa of Alderaan, and this here is my guard for the evening, Captain Killian Ors. I'm afraid I haven't my ID on me— I left it in the palace this afternoon."

The trooper studied him. He turned to his companion, who held a small datapad, and said, "Look up Prince Luke Organa."

The trooper obliged. Luke waited patiently, Cassian frozen at his back, and smiled easily when his own face appeared in a still-holo. It was an older portrait, from when he still wore his hair short. It had been at an Empire Day celebration on Alderaan, and a silver circlet glinted as surely as his blue eyes in the haze of the holo.

"Your hair is shorter here," the trooper observed.

"Yes," Luke said. "That was two years ago, sir, and I have not cut my hair since then. Honestly, would you like me to comm my father, Senator Bail Organa, Viceroy of Alderaan?" The thought of calling his father for something so silly as an Imperial checkpoint was embarrassing to say the least, but he'd do it if it saved Cassian from getting discovered, or saved these troopers from getting killed.

The Stormtroopers glanced looked at each other. "That won't be necessary," the one without the datapad said. "Move along, your Highness."

"Thank you." Luke touched Cassian's arm gently. "Come on, Captain. It's too cold out here to wait around!"

They hurried past the Stormtroopers, though Cassian kept glancing back at them, his hand still trained on his blaster.

"You should have let me handle that," he muttered.

"Oh, so you could have killed them and created a whole scene?" Luke asked him in a tempered, but scathing tone. "I like you, Cassian, but this is not a battlefield. You are safe with me, so please get your hand off that blaster and show me where in the stars we're headed."

And so Cassian looked at him, blinking mildly in wonder, and he shrugged and held up his hands in surrender. "Follow me, your Highness," he said. And so Luke followed.

He was brought before a magnificent building, as detailed in its domed architecture as the palace, looping arches rounding about its massive face and curving out of sight. Luke stopped at the entrance, one grand archway that was two stories larger than the rest, and he turned to look at Cassian. The man stood with his fur trimmed hood half obscuring his face, and his wavy hair falling into his eyes. Luke reminded himself, not for the first time, that Cassian was not so much older than him.

"Thank you for taking me here," he said.

Cassian gave him a short, almost mocking bow. His thin lips were pulled into a small smirk. "It is good to have met you," he said, "Luke."

"I'm glad to have met you as well," Luke replied.

Cassian blinked at him from the shadows, and for the first time Luke thought he saw light reflecting in the depths of his dark eyes. He smiled then, and he nodded, and he turned a heel and disappeared.

Luke stood in the great yawning glow of the Gallery, yellow light pooling around his feet and snowflakes drifting against his hair. The warmth of the museum was leaking out into the street, and as he stood and stared he became more aware of his chapped nose and ears and fingertips.

 _I will save Pooja Naberrie_ , he thought. He turned into the archway and stepped inside.


	3. Luke and Ryoo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so much longer than the others, im really not sure why i split it up this way but hey!! it's me, im not even remotely surprised.
> 
> next week i'll post the final chapter. it'll be a bit darker than the rest. just a bit.

He basked in the warmth of the museum, not only the warm air but the warm colors and atmosphere that dripped from the tops of its golden domed ceilings to the rich red velvet curtains that lined the smooth stone walls to the polished umber tiles that reflected the saturated elements around it. Luke sat down heavily upon a bench, peering up at the statue of one of Naboo's first monarchs— a woman who was neither old nor young, decked out in all of the traditional regalia, but somehow it became her much more than any other young queen Luke had seen.

To say he was relying on his good sense to help him solve this murder was an understatement. He was going on pure faith here, his heart singing to him to keep his feet on the ground and his chin in the air and to never, _never_ relent. Especially not to Darth Vader.

Somewhere not too far away, music was playing. Like the instrument he had played in the cantina, but more archaic. It was probably the purer version, without modern technicalities to boost the volume and vibrance of the notes.

He closed his eyes and let himself get lost in the sound of it.

His father had taught him to play the mandolin, the vioflute, and the synth-viol, which was what he was hearing now. He also liked the play the blissl, though his father was not very fond of the shrill noise it tended to make.

"You play the viol," his father had often said, "and I'll play the mandolin. Okay?"

"Okay, papa!"

And so it went. His father had a very soothing voice, the sort of smooth baritone that caressed the air until it laid still and all the world was right. He'd pluck the mandolin in a question, and Luke would lay his bow upon the strings of the viol in answer.

Sometimes his mother would join in and sing, her face turned out toward the milky horizon as she sat on the balcony and kept the tune of old lullabies.

He felt someone near him, their carefully kept distance making them harder to sense. Luke opened his eyes and blinked up at a woman who stood severely, her dark eyes fixed upon his face and her knuckles white against her black sleeves.

"The Gallery is closing," she said. Her voice was sweeter than her eyes, mellifluous and soft. It sounded familiar, and Luke's senses seemed to tingle like his numb fingertips, his mind reeling as he peered up at the woman's heart-shaped face.

He remembered it very suddenly, and he jumped to his feet. "Ryoo Naberrie," he gasped.

The woman took a step back, her sharp eyes flickering from his head to his toes. She was so different from her sister, from the simple way she wore her short brown hair to absence of any real makeup to her minimalistic attire. Her hair was straight, cropped at the ears in a severe line, and she wore a black turtleneck tucked into black slacks. She had a badge on her collarbone that stated her authority.

"Do I… know you?" Ryoo tucked her hair behind her ear neatly, once more looking him up and down. She was taller than him by a few inches, and his youth was certain to show in his unkempt appearance.

"No, no," Luke said, shaking his head furiously. "I'm Luke Organa. I know your sister, Pooja?"

"Oh!" Ryoo smiled at him, her cold eyes immediately lighting up delightedly. "Prince Organa! Right, right, I think she mentioned you. She's been showing you around the city, which is why she can't come home to visit Grandmother and Grandfather." She laughed warmly, which caused Luke to smile and relax a bit. "How do you like Theed so far?"

"It's very beautiful," Luke said slowly, his eyes catching around this golden room, and he felt rather small as he stood there bathed in the halo of the golden dome. "It reminds me of Aldera at times."

"We get that a lot," Ryoo said with a dry smirk. "Our cultures are similar, Prince Luke. We are both peaceful peoples, and staunch believers of democracy, which is why your own monarchy has such an elaborate series of checks and balances in the form of elected officials, and why our monarchy is purely election based. Our histories and our peoples share a kind of solidarity. Perhaps that is why we have had a history of keeping each other close, hm?"

"Maybe," Luke said, pulling at his fingernails nervously. "Um, Ryoo? Have you spoken to Pooja at all today?"

Ryoo tilted her head, her dark hair slipping against her cheek. "No," she said. "Pooja is always very busy with all her senate work and charity and whatever the queen needs her to do at any given moment. It's difficult to get ahold of her sometimes. Why?"

Luke looked up at the woman, who had thrown her guard up so readily and so surely that Luke wondered why Pooja had been the only Naberrie to go into politics. Because Ryoo took one look at him now, with his eyes softening in sympathy as he notched the arrow and prepared for the release, and Ryoo Naberrie held up her hand and shook her head furiously.

"Not here," she said. She took him by the wrist and dragged him through the gallery, taking an abrupt turn through an archway, and then through another, allowing Luke to get lost in this dizzying maze of golden arches and glinting plaques.

They reached a room that appeared to be some kind of office. Luke saw Ryoo's name on a plaque outside the door, which slid open and allowed them inside. Ryoo whirled to face him, and she inhaled very sharply, her fingers digging sharply into her arms.

"What's happened to Pooja?" she asked. Her voice was calm, almost serene, but Luke saw the glint of panic in her eyes. He bowed his head and took a deep breath.

"She's been accused of murder," he said, unable to meet Ryoo's gaze. He allowed that fact to settle, though Ryoo made no noise to suggest she was shocked by this. "She… she didn't do it. I know she didn't, but… all the eyewitnesses say that the culprit looked like Queen Amidala, as surely as the lakes are blue, and Vader is _convinced_ that must mean it's Pooja."

"Vader," Ryoo repeated dully. Luke looked up at her, and saw that her face had turned completely ashen. "Vader is holding my sister accountable for a murder based on coincidence?"

"Greater men have been killed for less," Luke said softly. Ryoo's eyes narrowed.

"This is my sister," she said fiercely. "My _sister_. Pooja is quick-witted and she can handle a blaster well enough, but she hasn't got a malicious bone in her body! They think she killed someone because she looks like our Aunt Padmé? _I_ look like our Aunt Padmé, but they didn't come running after me, and I'm much more of a threat than _Pooja_."

Luke didn't want to point out that Ryoo looked much less like the woman he had seen in the painting than her sister, but he didn't have the heart. Ryoo was fuming, her jaw set and her feet falling heavily as she paced from one side of her office to the other.

"I'm here because I'm trying to prove her innocence," Luke said, "I mean, if you're willing to help me."

Ryoo stopped short and whirled to face him. Her eyes were bold and fierce as she stared him down intently. "What do you need?" she demanded.

Luke took a deep breath, and he offered her a sheepish smile. Her eyes narrowed.

She did not ask why Luke thought learning about Padmé Amidala would help. All she did was lead him to a domed room lined with portraits, as the room in the palace had been, though this one was not quite as cramped and had stations beneath each with holopads that reflected the monarchs as they had been the day they had taken office.

Padmé Amidala was _small_. Luke found himself looking down at a life-sized holo of the young queen, her chin jutting up and then dragging in as she turned and leaned in to listen to some unseen ear. She wore her makeup, white coming up stark on the shimmering blue image and her hair was pulled tight into an elaborate headdress of pale jewels. Her sleeves were large and puffy, and her dress looked like it was made of some smooth material like red or black silk. Once more Luke found himself fixated on her face.

"Are you going to stand there and gape at my aunt all night?" Ryoo asked sharply, snapping her fingers before his face. He jumped a bit, his face flushing as he shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said weakly. "There's just… something about her." He winced, realizing how awful and corny that sounded. "I don't know."

Ryoo arched an eyebrow at him, her lips pursing as though she remained unconvinced. "Okay…" She shrugged and flicked a button on Queen Amidala's holopad. The holo of her disappeared, replaced by a biography. Ryoo picked up the holopad and handed it to him. "This is all that is known, officially, about Padmé Naberrie Amidala. All other records of her have been tampered with or destroyed."

"What?" Luke reeled back in alarm. "Why?"

"I haven't a clue." Ryoo shrugged again, this time looking rather sullen. "My aunt… she was an amazing woman. She had this way about her, like she seemed like she had the whole world in its place and she was just enjoying the view. We adored her, Pooja and I… I suppose that's why we ended up in the places we are. Pooja a senator, me a historian. We're trying to keep close to someone we only really knew from afar, like she was a dream or a holo, and even when she was really there she wasn't _really_ there, you know? She was absolutely perfect— too perfect, really."

Luke pushed his hair from his eyes, noting that the melted snow had caused his hair to curl across his forehead, and he wandered to the nearest bench and sat. The holo document had pictures of Queen Amidala from various points in her career, starting from her coronation and ending sometime near the end of her life. Luke had skimmed the doc once, and immediately found himself enrapt in the sight of her on Empire Day, caught by a stray camera, her hair pulled strictly away from her face and her eyes dazed and far away as though her whole life had just begun to crumble around her, and Luke _felt_ that. He sat, his fingers trembling against the holopad, and he forced himself to look away.

"Are you alright?" Ryoo asked him hesitantly.

"Yes," he said faintly, "I think so."

He moved on, scrolling back up to read her biography in full. It was rather basic, noting her birthplace and her Apprentice Legislature group, the accomplishments she had made before the age of twelve, and then her election. It was all rather basic information. There wasn't too much detail, not even about the Naboo Crisis, which sounded very interesting but seemed to only take up about three sentences of her biography.

In the end, she died with her beloved Republic, of causes unknown. She had been pregnant at the time.

Luke's whole body seemed to buzz, his mind humming as he set the holopad down and looked down at his hands. They were still shaking.

Ryoo sat down beside him, glancing at him worriedly. He sensed it. He sensed it, and that was not odd, but somehow he sensed it in a way that made him feel so confident that he could wade in the surety of it all. He was so sure of what he sensed in Ryoo, but so unsure in what he sensed in Queen Amidala, and it frightened him.

"Whoever the real killer is," Ryoo said somberly, "you won't find them in the tragedy of Padmé Amidala, Luke. History has buried her. If she were not so beloved by our people, even this shred of information would be lost. She's not even a ghost anymore, just… a memory. And a faded one at that."

"She was pregnant," Luke murmured. "That's so sad."

Ryoo nodded. "My mother said Aunt Padmé never even told them who the father was. She didn't even know about the baby until they brought her body home."

"That's awful."

Ryoo sniffed. "Yes," she agreed, smooth her hair back behind her ears, "well, it's ancient history. Did any of this help? Be honest."

Luke bit the inside of his cheek, and he averted his eyes so her sharp gaze didn't quite look right through him. It didn't help. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "She seemed to be a very complex woman, but all of the details of her work are just… gone. And I don't know anything about the man who was killed except that he was an ISB agent, and he liked to hang around some place called Ruuni's."

"Ruuni's?" Ryoo scoffed. "Well that's telling."

"What?" Luke frowned at her, puzzled by the way she smirked. "What is it?"

"Ruuni's is a brothel," Ryoo said. "Your dead agent was certainly a paragon of Imperial excellence, huh?"

"How do you know it's a brothel?" Luke asked her incredulously, cocking his head. Ryoo rolled her eyes.

"The Gallery isn't just here for old monarchs and think pieces about past conflicts," Ryoo said. "It's here for actual art too. ISB agents like to bring escorts here sometimes. Don't ask me why, I don't understand them."

"Oh, so it's like… a power flaunting thing?" Luke wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Just when you think they can't get any scummier."

Ryoo nodded. "It wouldn't hurt to go see if there are any girls at Ruuni's who look like Aunt Padmé…" She rubbed her eyes tiredly. "But even then… it wasn't as though my aunt looked all that unique, you know. Brown hair and brown eyes and pale skin are unbelievably common among humans. Hell, Aunt Padmé had an entire _entourage_ of girls who looked just like—" Ryoo cut herself off, her lazy smile falling away fast. She blinked ahead of her, stunned for a moment, and she turned to face Luke. " _Oh_."

"What?" Luke searched Ryoo's face, which had gone oddly, serenely blank for a few moments. "What is it, Ryoo? What girls?"

"Aunt Padmé had handmaidens who went with her wherever she went," Ryoo said, dragging her hands down her face. "Oh, why didn't I think of it sooner? Those girls were trained as well as assassins, and they all looked enough like Padmé that they could trade places with her in a pinch— it just— it makes _sense_ , but at the same time it doesn't at all."

"Are any of those handmaidens still here on Naboo?" Luke gasped, watching Ryoo's brow knit together in deep thought. He felt it as surely as he had felt the snow on his cheeks outside, the way these words seemed to click everything into place. Handmaidens. The handmaidens. Even Eulalia had spoken of her own handmaidens so flippantly, as though having a whole small battalion of doppelgangers was a common occurrence.

"I have no idea," Ryoo sighed. "Aunt Padmé was always so distant and tight-lipped about her job, so the handmaidens were never really discussed. They were at her funeral, but that's the last I saw of them."

"Do you know any of their names at least?" Luke heard his own voice heightening desperately, and he winced. It was that little lilt of a whine that tended to come about when he was frustrated or annoyed, and his mother often chastised him for it. It was unbecoming of a prince to whine.

"I don't remember them off the top of my head," Ryoo admitted, "but my mother might. I think she kept in contact with some of them, after…" She trailed off, her dark eyes flashing mournfully toward Queen Amidala's portrait. Luke didn't want to look at her. His hands were still shaking.

"We have less than a day until Vader brings Pooja up on the charges of murder in the first degree," Luke said. "If your mother knows these handmaidens, we should act fast."

Ryoo nodded stiffly. She returned Padmé's holo to its rightful place and told Luke to stay put. He listened well, sitting awkwardly on the bench and avoiding eye contact with a long dead queen. He closed his eyes and allowed the image of his mother's face to float in his mind, her tightly braided hair tucked neatly beneath her veil. She would smooth back Luke's own hair, teasing him that it was getting long enough for traditional Alderaani braids, and Luke would flush and squirm and promise he'd cut it soon even though that was a damn lie and they both knew it.

But when he opened his eyes, the soft and somber gaze of Padmé Amidala watched him like a hawk. The young queen's holo, which lifted her chin and turned to some unseen ear, had her eyes locked with his. He was utterly unnerved, his stomach squirming in discomfort, and he felt that she was truly looking at him.

Fulcrum's calm, level voice filled his head.

" _You are a mountain,"_ she'd said. _"Let your mind become a mountain, so high and so mighty that no man living or dead can scale it. Imagine that mountain. Become that mountain."_

He imagined that mountain. There was a hole at its base.

 _I need to fix that,_ he thought numbly. _Right. I'll fix it. Plug the hole so nothing can get in. Or out. Right, Fulcrum?_

Luke nearly leapt out of his skin as someone touched his shoulder, and when he looked up he saw Ryoo's face. He relaxed immediately.

"Are you okay?" She looked genuinely concerned, her severe face softening significantly as she squeezed his shoulder. "You look pale."

"I'm fine." Luke jumped to his feet. "What are we doing?"

"My family has an apartment not too far from here," she said, leading him toward the door. "If you're comfortable with it, you can stay the night while we try to sort it all out. Don't tell them about Pooja, though."

"Uh," Luke said, blinking in alarm, "okay? How are we explaining my presence, then?"

"You're the son of Aunt Padmé's friend," Pooja said, rolling her eyes. "They'll let you stay."

Luke followed her, a little puzzled by her words. Pooja sounded so sure of this, as though it wasn't just a fabrication made in a moment to excuse his presence. Unless it was true. Which wouldn't be so surprising, considering Queen Amidala had also been a senator around the same time as his father. It was just too much of a coincidence, though.

He really hated coincidences. They were driving him insane.

Ryoo's parents' apartment was very spacious and colorful, decorated with light blue hues and old artifacts. Luke stood awkwardly at the door as Ryoo stormed in.

"Mom," she called, tossing her jacket over a chair and disappearing into a hall. He heard muffled chattering, and a woman's bright laughter. Ryoo reappeared with a middle aged woman in tow. "Mom, this is Prince Luke Organa."

The woman's eyes flashed to Luke's face in alarm. "Organa," she said, smoothing back wisps of her loose brown hair behind her ears. Luke blinked at her, and he looked down at his feet self-consciously. "You are… Bail and Breha's son?"

"You know my parents?" Luke asked softly, mildly awed.

"I've seen Bail in holos." The woman smiled at him, and offered out her hand. "Sola Naberrie. Welcome to our home, Prince Luke."

"Just Luke is fine," Luke said, laughing nervously. Ryoo watched him with her cool gaze, and he knew it was a warning not to say anything about Pooja. He sighed, and put on his brightest face. "Naboo is so lovely, I don't think I want to leave!"

Sola laughed and patted his shoulder gently. "Oh, they all say that," she said. "I've heard Alderaan is something to behold. A true natural wonder."

"It is beautiful," Luke said with a nod. "I suppose every world has its own unique beauty to it. I've never seen a world I didn't like."

"Truly?" Sola's eyes shot upward, and she glanced at Ryoo with a wry smirk. "Where'd you pick this little wide eyed idealist up?"

"The Gallery," Ryoo said.

"I'm actually doing my final dissertation for the Legislative Youth Program on Alderaan on Padmé Amidala," Luke said, glancing at Sola with an apologetic smile. Ryoo said nothing, but she did stare at him with narrowed eyes.

Sola blinked at him, a shadow of doubt and grief momentarily passing over her face before she smiled. "Legislative Youth Program," she muttered. " _Politics_."

"You have something against it?" Luke asked curiously.

"It's all that consumed my sister's waking thoughts," Sola said, not without a hint of bitterness. "Your final dissertation, you say? Hm. Well, I can tell you as much as I remember about her political attributions, but truly Ryoo has a better memory than I do."

"You knew her better, Mom," Ryoo said, sitting down on the arm of a sofa and smiling warmly at her mother. "All my knowledge comes from lectures and research. And you know how censorship is these days. I feel like I've only got half the story."

"That's because your aunt spent so much time with the Jedi," Sola said, her voice truly embittered now. She glanced at Luke, whose face had lit up and a thousand questions had sprung upon his tongue. "Oh, calm down now. You can't put any of that in your thesis, you know better than that."

"Of course," Luke said, shelfing his excitement with a restrained smile. "I'd still love to hear about it, though."

"Of course you would." Sola shook her head. "Well, you might as well sit. Ryoo, could you put some tea on?"

Ryoo did a mock salute and slipped out of the room while Sola led Luke to the couch.

"You're very small, aren't you?" She studied Luke, who flushed at her words. "Sorry, I only mean… well, I've seen Bail Organa, and he's a rather strapping man, isn't he? You must take after your mother."

Luke rubbed his cheek, as though he could make the redness disappear with a brush of his hand, and he shrugged. "I get that a lot," he admitted, looking down at his hands. "I don't look much like either of my parents."

Sola looked down at him sympathetically. "But you are interested in politics?" she asked, changing the subject as quickly as she noticed his discomfort. He was grateful for that.

"Yes," he said, laughing a little. "I mean, as the son of a queen and a senator, I suppose I was made for it, but… I don't know. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten into it, in another life, and had settled for one of my other talents. But I want so badly to make this galaxy better, and that just isn't something a pilot or an engineer can do."

Sola exhaled, blinking up at the ceiling and smiling ruefully. "You sound like my daughter," she murmured. "And my sister."

"I'm… sorry?" Luke stared at her uncertainly. "I'm only trying to do what's right. And your sister… she's an inspiration to those of us who still believe in a democratically run system of government."

Sola looked at him. Her eyes softened, and her smile fell away. "She would have liked you," she said.

"Really?" Luke found that his heart swelled at her words, and he smiled down at his hands. "That's a nice thought."

"Yes," Sola sighed, "Well, I hope it treats you and my daughter better than it treated her."

Luke considered her words, finding the silence that stretched between them to be absolutely deafening. He looked at his hands, which had long since stopped shaking, and he tried to recollect that feeling he had had in the Gallery, in the room of portraits with Pooja, but he could not quite connect himself to that sense of being utterly transparent. He didn't think of his mind or the mountains, because he did not need to.

He felt so confused, and nothing seemed to help.

"Her love and dedication toward the Republic will be remembered," Luke told Sola firmly. "I'll make sure of that."

Sola smiled at him warmly. "You sweet boy," she murmured. "Don't."

Luke looked at her, stunned momentarily. "What?"

"Don't write your dissertation about Padmé," she said. "Don't openly sympathize with someone who was so vocally against the rise of the Empire that she died within days of its birth. You are a smart boy, but do not make my sister's mistakes, I'm begging you. Let her rest."

"I—" Luke's voice failed him, shuddering in shock and confusion. Ryoo had appeared, a tray of tea in hand, and her sharp eyes fell on his face. She looked at him with the sort of cold fury that made Luke want to shrink into the peach hued upholstery. "I'm not sure I understand. Did you disagree with Padmé's view, or—?"

"Sweetheart," Sola said, taking him by the shoulder and staring into his eyes. "Your dissertation will be ripped apart by censorship laws and the datachip will be fed to a trash compactor faster than you can blink. And then you will be blacklisted, or taken in for questioning about your loyalty to the Empire, and your father will be put into a difficult position as your world's senator— and do you really want that?"

Luke did not balk at the suggestion, but he did allow himself to mull it over. He knew the consequences, of course. He had had this conversation with his father a hundred times when he came back to Alderaan after yet another vote did not go his way, and the threat of assassination loomed overhead.

"You will have more coverage in the senate," Bail had said more than once, smoothing back Luke's unruly hair. "As the heir to Alderaan, you are not as expendable as me. So speak. Speak the truth as often as you can get away with it."

"And if I can't get away with it?"

Bail had smiled. "What is more important? Your beliefs or your life?"

In a heartbeat, Luke had replied, "My beliefs."

"Then there you are, Luke."

Now that he thought about it, the idea that his father and Padmé Amidala were once friends was not all that shocking.

"My faith in people," Luke said to Sola, "in _democracy_ outlasts my fear of the Empire. If they want to blacklist me, my father, and my people from having a voice in the senate, then fine. But we won't go without an outcry of dissent from varying systems who only stay silent because of the example my people have set as a peaceful, altruistic system. If simply writing an essay about Padmé Amidala's accomplishments gets me into trouble with the Empire, which might I add I have been in before, and I found out quite young that I have diplomatic immunity to most offenses, well, I suppose they'll just have to arrest me."

Sola stared at him. She exhaled sharply.

"You are worse than Pooja," she decided. "Ryoo, let me have some of that tea."

Ryoo slid a teacup across the table. She sat down across from them, and she smiled tightly at Luke.

"You've been in trouble with the Empire before?" She squinted at him. "Such a clean cut kid, too. What did you do, hm? Party too hard on Imperial Center?"

"Ryoo," Sola hissed.

Luke laughed. Mostly because he had not been to Coruscant in years, but also because he had once been to a party with people his age, and had sat in the corner with a Sullustan girl and talked about podracing. He had _still_ somehow gotten in trouble, because he had come home tipsy and he'd felt so guilty he'd never done it again.

"A misunderstanding, mostly," he said, taking a cup that Ryoo offered him gratefully. "Lord Vader sort of interrogated me when I was eleven. I was somewhere I shouldn't have been, and the situation sort of got out of control."

Ryoo and Sola met one another's eyes over the table. "You were interrogated by Darth Vader at age eleven?" Ryoo asked, her eyebrows raising. She brought her teacup to her lips and shrugged. "That's certainly something. How scary was he?"

Luke knew he could pass it off as no big deal, but knowing Ryoo for about an hour was enough for him to understand he wouldn't get away with it.

"Literally the most terrifying thing I've ever seen," Luke said, thumbing his cup of tea idly. "I used to have nightmares about it. Fulcrum— my bodyguard, I mean, she… she told me that the nightmares were so bad because I was trying to block them out, but it was better to embrace them. She was right. They went away after that."

Ryoo watched him. Her eyes had softened considerably, and she looked down at her tea pensively before setting it aside.

"You really want to know about Padmé?" Sola asked. Her voice was distant and sort of hoarse, as though she had not spoken of her sister in awhile.

"Yes," Luke said.

"Well." Sola set her tea down and smoothed out her skirts. "What do you want to know?"

Ryoo and Luke glanced at each other. "Well…" He bit his lip. He knew, of course, that there was a slim chance any of this could lead back to their murderer. But still, he felt in his heart that he was in the right place. Wasn't that enough?

For Luke Organa, yes. It was.

"Luke wanted to know about the handmaidens, Mom," Ryoo said. "You know, the ones that stood in for Padmé?"

"Oh, yes," Sola said with a small smile. "The handmaidens. What a group. I remember when they were all training together, Padmé would comm me and I'd be sitting in my room chatting with about ten girls plus my little sister about what boys I fancied."

"I'm glad to know the leader of our world was so seasoned and mature," Ryoo said dryly.

"I watched my baby sister speak to the senate on behalf of our world when she was fourteen," Sola told her daughter curtly. "I thought to myself, well that _can't_ be Padmé. It's got to be one of those other girls, Dormé or Rabé or Cordé — but it was her, of course, and I was a fool for doubting her. I never liked seeing her in politics. It was rather draining, worrying over her safety because she was always sticking her neck out for unpopular ideas. She was absolutely charming, and absolutely impossible."

"So the handmaidens… did stand in for her," Luke said slowly.

"Yes, at times." Sola shrugged. "I didn't know them that well, and their names all blur together now. They were all meant to confuse would-be assassins, as she was publicly known as Amidala at the time so her first name wasn't commonly known. They all looked so similar and had such similar names that without the regalia it would be impossible to tell which one was actually Amidala. Many of them served as her decoy, actually. Like Cordé… Dormé and Sabé as well, I believe—"

"Sabé?" Luke blurted, looking at Sola sharply. "Sabé… is that… a common name on Naboo?"

Sola blinked. She shrugged and glanced at her daughter. "I'm not sure. Is it, Ryoo?"

"It's not uncommon," Ryoo offered. He could sense her bemusement as he sat with his head bowed, his heart working faster than his head.

 _Sabé_.

"She trained with Queen Amidala?" he asked, his voice thin and his mouth dry.

"Yes?" Sola touched his shoulder very gingerly. "Luke, are you alright? Do you need a glass of water?"

"No, I… I just…" _Sabé._ "I think I have to go. I'm sorry."

"What?" Ryoo's eyes darted from her mother to Luke and back as Luke stood, setting his tea aside and wandered dazedly toward the door. "Luke, you can't just leave. It's dark, and you're bound to be noticed and mugged, or worse!"

"Ryoo's right," Sola gasped. "Luke, please come sit back down. Sabé's hasn't been to Naboo in years, so I'm not sure how much—"

"You've been very kind," Luke cut in, turning to face the two Naberrie women with a sincere smile. "Truly, I feel so at home here that it makes my heart ache. You are lovely people. But I just realized something, and I have to go now. I just… I feel like I know it, in my heart, so I have to go. Please understand. I'll come back!" He whirled away and started toward the door. "I promise I'll see you both soon!"

And with that, he left.

What on earth was Luke Organa thinking? These were the things that his past teachers had often griped about to his parents, to his advisers, to anyone who would listen. He snuck out often enough, but he was only ever found in the junk yard or at a landing strip. He mocked Imperials, but only to those who would laugh with him. He made a mess, but was quick to make amends and even quicker to prove that one mistake did not define him.

And he was also very keen on running on every sharp, vicious instinct that stabbed at his ever expanding heart.

The address he had been given was outdated, his father had said. Sabé would not be there, so don't go looking. It was a celebration, he said. Have fun, he said.

Luke Organa ran through the snowy streets of Theed, his silver cloak fluttering at his back and his breath wilting in puffs around him. And he thought to himself, _Sabé is part of a rebel cell here on Naboo. That is why she left. That is why. That is why. I feel like I should have known. I should have known. But how could I have known?_

He skidded to a stop, snow dusting his legs and cloak, before an old building that seemed to be weathered by the passage of time. He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the steep darkness and the tinge of yellow lamp light and the shadowy silhouettes of a late night crowd. His eyes were stinging with unshed tears.

He rung a buzzer, and he waited.

And he waited.

The cold pinched at his cheeks, and he pulled his hood up and held it steady against the onslaught of bitter wind. He looked up at the cold stone building, ivy webbing its face, and he shook his head. He rung the buzzer again.

When there was no answer, he licked his lips, which was a terrible idea because the cold night air bit at the wet surface and threatened to tear his skin right off. Then he rubbed his hands together, as thought to spark some life back into them, then he pulled his blaster from the holster beneath his jerkin and shot the bolts holding the key slot to the wall twice. The plaster loosened, and the metal hissed, and Luke tossed some snow at it to cool it down before ripping it from the wall and exposing a whole lot of wire to the elements.

He worked quickly, gloves discarded, tearing rubber from wire with his teeth and using a bit of charred metal to rip them up. He tied them quickly, careful not to let any exposed wire touch snow, and after a few minutes of fiddling, the door slid open.

He stepped inside, blaster drawn, and for a moment he stood in the foyer and basked in the warmth. Then, with a great surge of certainty, he whirled around with his blaster aimed high.

His eyes met the barrel of someone else's blaster.

Without thought, he dropped his weapon and held his hands in the air.

The woman in front of him stepped forward, the light falling upon her face. In that moment, Luke thought he understood. He saw her large brown eyes and high cheekbones, her strong jaw and her thin nose. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face, similarly to how Padmé Amidala had worn it on Empire Day.

But the way she held her blaster? That was all Sabé.

"Hood off," she commanded sharply, her blaster jerking toward his face.

Luke pushed his hood back, and he peered at Sabé closely. Her expression did not betray any indication that she recognized him, though her eyes did flit from his face to his shoes quickly.

"Sabé," he said softly. "It's been awhile."

She eyed him, her jaw jumping as she kept her blaster trained on the center of his forehead. She peered outside for a moment before, elbowing the button that forced it to slide shut.

"You…" She squinted at him, and she lowered her blaster cautiously. "Luke Organa?"

"It's me," he said.

Her stony face split into a delighted, disbelieving grin. " _Luke_!" she gasped, tucking her blaster away so she could reach out and grasp his face in her hands. "You're so big!"

"Leave it to you, Sabé," Luke laughed, "to point a blaster in my face and then go and coddle me."

"I can't help it," she sighed, "it's in my programming. But truly, when did you grow up? Oh, I should have visited. This isn't fair, you've gone and grown old on me."

"I'm only fifteen," Luke said sheepishly.

"Too old to be dropping your blaster without a cause, then," she said, scooping up his weapon from the floor and handing it to him.

"I knew it was you, though."

"But I didn't know it was you, and could have shot you," Sabé replied. "So next time, don't drop your weapon, okay? It's foolish to assume your enemy is a friend when they're still aiming to kill you."

"Right…" Luke took the blaster, albeit hesitantly, and he lowered his head. Sabé had been his teacher for two years before moving on, longer than any of his teachers in any field of study. She'd tutored him in etiquette, and in espionage, and she had taught him how to kill a man seven different ways with a hair clip. He loved her, and he knew her, and because of that he understood.

This was his killer.

"Do you know why I'm here, Sabé?" he asked as she led him into a rather dilapidated old room. She was wearing dark robes over fatigues, and she moved quickly to clean up what appeared to be a plethora of datapads lying on her table.

"I suppose it isn't a casual visit," Sabé sighed, shooting Luke a tight smile. "Luke, you're old enough to know—"

"That you're a rebel spy?" Luke tilted his head and smirked. She looked at him sharply, but collected herself quickly. "Sabé, I figured that out years ago. I wish I was here on some less polarizing issue, like to pick up some information and deposit it elsewhere, but I'm not."

Sabé blinked, and she lifted her chin in a way that seemed to mirror the holo of Queen Amidala in the Gallery. For moment, Luke was breathless, and his head was swimming.

"I've been caught," she surmised.

"That would be easier," Luke said in a clipped reply. It was hard for him to form words until Sabé smirked at him, and the illusion ended with a snap and a hiss. Luke still felt rather sick and dizzy, but her persevered. "Sabé, that ISB agent you killed this afternoon? Half a dozen people saw you do it."

"Yes," Sabé said flatly. "I am aware, Luke. Why do you think I put a blaster in your face, aside from the breaking and entering?"

"They don't think it's you, though," he gasped, shaking his head furiously. "They— the witnesses all said it was the ghost of Queen Amidala, but no one thought to look for you because you've been so under the radar that everyone forgot you were her handmaiden. Do you know how many hoops I had to hop through just to find out that information, Sabé? That you were once her decoy?"

Sabé's eyes had hardened, and she turned away from him sharply. Her boots fell heavily against the floor as she stalked toward a window, her jaw clenched.

"I am well aware of what little information is left available of my queen," Sabé said curtly. "Thank you for reminding me, Luke."

"They think it's Queen Amidala's niece," Luke snapped, his voice raising enough that he had to reign himself back in. He took a deep breath as Sabé looked back at him, her expression melting into one of shock and remorse. "The evidence is purely circumstantial, mostly that she was in the area and looks the part, but it's the Empire so they'll still convict her. What am I supposed to do now?"

She scoffed at him. "What do you mean, what are you supposed to do?" she asked, her voice as biting as his had been. "Luke, who do you think I am? My duty, even now, is to my queen. I will not let her flesh and blood suffer for my own crime."

"And I won't let you turn yourself in," Luke replied fiercely. "So we're both shit out of luck, huh?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Sit," she commanded, gesturing vaguely to a chair at the table full of datapads. Luke glanced at it, and then back at her. He opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off sharply. "Prince Luke Organa, sit down and listen to me."

Luke sat down and shut his mouth tight.

Sabé stalked forward, as regal and collected as ever, and she spoke to Luke with all the vicious bite of a seasoned orator.

"I have given half my life to the service of the most courageous woman I have ever known," she said, "and I have given the other half to preserving her memory, and defending the values that she held dearer than her own life. All I have done, I have done for Padmé Amidala, and if I allow for my actions to fall on the shoulders of her own niece, then all that I have pledged myself to for the last thirty years of my life has been for nothing. I have taught you enough, Luke, that you must know that surviving is not always the most important thing. We must also stay true to ourselves, and our beliefs, and never let the innocent suffer on our behalf if we can help it. So my part here has ended. But yours, Luke, is only just beginning."

Luke sat quietly in the dim living room, the air cold and thick with dust, and he shook his head. Sabé's gaze was hard and resolute, and he sensed that her unwavering spirit would lead her to her death if he allowed it.

This wasn't what he'd been imagining. But somehow, it was right. He had come here by chance, by luck, by destiny even, but he had known in his heart that he would get here somehow without even knowing where he was going.

All this time trying to avoid losing someone he cared about, and he still managed to lose someone he cared about.

Life was funny that way.

"I don't want to lose you," Luke murmured.

Sabé stood, as solid and unyielding as a bronze statue in a village of mud, and she closed her eyes. She said nothing, did nothing, and the room was quiet in a way that made Luke want to scratch his ears right off. He was no good in silence, which was what hurt him as a future politician, his father often said, because he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut when it counted.

Filling the silence would be so easy. But he couldn't speak.

So Sabé rounded the table and sat down in the chair beside him. He stared ahead, at a stubborn peeling spot on the wall across from them. She put a hand on his arm, and he found his composure chipping away as he leaned into her touch, his vision swimming.

She held his head against his shoulder patiently as he cried. He was grateful, at least, that the silence had been broken.

He fell asleep on her sofa, listening to her recount her memory of the Naboo Crisis. In his mind he saw the young queen smile, determination setting her eyes like two black stones. The image became a dream, and in the dream she knelt beside him and gathered him up in a blanket.

"I know how cold space can be," she said in a sweet, mellow voice. "It can be lonely, too."

"I'm not lonely," he said with a little laugh. He tucked his face into the blanket and looked around. They were on some sort of ship, but it was rather old and unfamiliar. He heard the age old sounds of metal creaking, the ship settling noisily as it made its journey through hyperspace.

"No?" The queen smoothed his hair back gently, pushing it from his eyes and staring at them intently. "What a relief. I was worried, you know."

"Worried?"

The warm orange cowl of her robe shifted as she settled down beside him, still stroking his hair gently. "The life of a politician can be so draining," she sighed, resting her head against his shoulder and looking up at the ceiling. "Luke, do you really want to be a senator?"

"Like you, you mean?" Luke blinked at her curiously. "Of course. I've wanted to be a senator since I was a child. It's all I've ever wanted to be."

"You don't need to be what your father was," Padmé Amidala told him in her soft, loving tone. "All you need to be is you. What does your heart tell you, Luke?"

"It tells me," he said, listening to the tremor in his own voice, "that there is something missing. I feel like there is something missing in me, and it's so scary, you know, to have that kind of hollowness in you. I can't fill it up, no matter how many people I meet, no matter how many people I help, and I'm _floundering_ — who am I? What am I supposed to do?"

"And you think becoming a senator will fill that hole inside you?"

Luke closed his eyes. She was not there when he opened them.

"I think what I want doesn't matter," he whispered to no one. "This is already who I am."

The empty ship groaned in response.

Luke woke with his face pressed into the coarse fibers of the sofa, his cloak laid over him like a blanket. His eyelids stuck together stubbornly as he blinked into a white haze of morning light and swirling dust. When he sat up, he remembered Sabé's words, and he stumbled to his feet. His cloak fell away as he turned about hastily, his eyes darting from the cleared away table to the blaster that sat beside his shoes, which must have been removed at some point during the night.

Luke rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, gathering up his cloak and calling out hoarsely to the stark white morning. "Sabé?"

No one answered.

He swallowed hard and flung the cloak around his shoulders, buckling it with numb fingers. The silver clasp was so cold that he felt the pads of his thumbs sticking to it, as though it might have acquired some frost if he left it alone any longer. He sniffed, his nose a bit congested, and he saw that there was a portable heater beside the couch where he had slept. He bent beside it for a few moments, rubbing his chapped hands together and opening his palms to its red face. Then he turned it off and went to stuff his boots on.

There was more snow in the street when he stumbled outside, squinting up at the white sky and holding his hand over his eyes like a visor. He pulled his hood over his hair, which felt wispy and stiff from being periodically wet and frozen. He caught a glimpse of himself in the black glass of a screen downtown as he neared the palace, and he paused to consider him. He looked like a ghostly little waif, his cloak draped loosely over his thin shoulders and the hem of it was blackened from trudging through the mud and slush all night. His pale hair slipped out from beneath his hood in uneven curls, stray blond strands tickling his forehead and ears.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve and kept going.

The Stormtroopers at the gate asked him for his identification. He looked one of them straight in the helmet, too cold and too sick to give a damn about courtesy.

"I need to speak with Lord Vader immediately," he said icily. "So move aside."

"Who—?"

"I'm Prince Luke Organa of Alderaan," Luke sighed, glancing up at the sky impatiently. "Look, I don't have _time_ to wait for you to realize I'm supposed to be here! You need some more efficient way of identifying people!"

"It's called an ID," the Stormtrooper replied dryly, " _your Highness_. Invest in one. You may move along."

Luke streaked past them as soon as the gate opened, rushing up the steps of the palace as fast as he could without slipping. His heartbeat had escalated so fast that he could feel it in his throat and it throbbed inside his ears. His mouth was dry as he skidded into the yawning corridor that led to the room with the paintings.

"You!" Luke cried, jogging up to the trooper stationed outside the door. "Has anyone come in here since I left?"

"Who are you?" The trooper tilted his head.

"Who…? Seriously?" Luke shook his head. "I'm Luke Organa! Is Pooja still in there?"

"She hasn't left since yesterday."

Luke nodded. "Okay, let me in," he said.

"The only person permitted in or out of this room is Lord Vader."

"Lord Vader? To hell with Lord Vader!" Luke stretched himself out, straightening his back and lifting his chin as he had seen Queen Amidala and Sabé do. "That girl in there is innocent, and I can prove it. If you are so concerned with Lord Vader, why don't you go and fetch him so we can settle this matter once and for all?"

"Absolutely not," replied the trooper.

"Because you think I'll run in there and abscond with the senator into the bright sunlit morning?" Luke studied the Stormtrooper's immaculate white helmet, and he shook his head. "Do you want _me_ to go fetch Lord Vader? What's your designation?"

The trooper did not respond.

"Well then," Luke said, "I suggest you call someone else so _they_ can go get Lord Vader, and we can get this all over with."

The Stormtrooper exhaled sharply, and he snatched a comm link from their belt. "T5-113, come in. Lord Vader's presence is needed with the senator."

" _Roger_."

Luke closed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. He was so nervous he could barely breathe, but he couldn't let this Stormtrooper know that, and he certainly couldn't let _Vader_ know that.

 _If Sabé isn't here already,_ Luke thought, _where has she gone? She was pretty clear about turning herself in last night_.

Well, that bought Luke more time to sort this all out.

He felt Lord Vader before he saw him, and the cold oppressive force of him made Luke lose track of his breathing. He turned and smiled tightly, his fingernails digging into his elbows.

"Lord Vader," he greeted brightly. "Good morning! You know, I wasn't quite sure how to get ahold of you. I considered saying your name in a mirror three times, but I thought that might be in bad taste."

Vader stood there, nonplussed by Luke's audacity, and he turned to the trooper at the door. "What is this about?"

"Milord," the trooper said, at attention in a moment. "He refused to leave unless you came."

Vader's helmet swiveled back to Luke. He imagined behind it there was a very unimpressed man trying very hard not to lash out. It made Luke want to taunt him more, but also quite literally slide to the floor in a small ball and apologize profusely.

"Prince Organa," Vader said coolly. "Judging by your smug expression, I expect you found an alternative suspect?"

"I found the murderer, Lord Vader."

"I do not see her."

Luke exhaled sharply. "She's not _with_ me," he said, offering out his arms to show that there was no one hiding beneath his cloak. "Obviously. But I can tell you all about her and why she did it."

"I am not interested in who she is or why she did it," Vader said, his shuddering baritone caught in time with his respirator. "I simply want her in front of me. You did not deliver on your promise, and so—"

"I said I'd find the real culprit, and I did!" Luke cut in fiercely. "Lord Vader, Pooja is innocent!"

Vader looked down at him. Luke found himself gazing directly into the gleaming red lenses of his helmet, his heart racing.

"Your fear betrays you," Vader droned. "Whatever fire is in your soul, you would be wise to either extinguish it now, or let it consume you."

Luke did not blink. He replied curtly, "Bring Pooja to the throne room in thirty minutes. I will have the culprit ready to confess."

He turned away from Vader and walked calmly down the corridor.

Once he was out of sight, he nearly collapsed. His knees were wobbling and his heart ached in his chest from thudding so hard. His hands were sweating despite the chill in the air, and he was reeling from the release that came with the distance between himself and Vader.

 _My mind is a mountain, I am a mountain, nothing can get through_.

Where was Fulcrum when he needed her?

Luke maneuvered his way through the palace, dodging Imperials and guests alike before running by a handmaiden. "Ah!" Luke pulled her aside. "Do you know where Eulalia is?"

The handmaiden lifted his hand from her arm and dropped. "She is getting ready for the coronation," she said.

"Well, I need to speak to her."

The handmaiden glanced at him skeptically. Luke stared at her with desperate eyes, finding that he felt as pitiful as he looked. She sighed as she relented.

"This way," she murmured, directing him forward. He was led through a narrow passage up a perilously uneven staircase toward an area of the palace that he had never been.

The handmaiden, Lua, pushed open a pair of stiff mahogany doors. Luke smiled at her gratefully.

"Milady," Lua called softly. "Prince Luke Organa is here to see you."

He heard Eulalia scoff from somewhere deeper in the room, which was as extravagant as his mother's personal chambers back on Alderaan. Luke thumbed a crystal lamp near the doorway as Eulalia swept in, wearing a soft pink silk dressing gown, long black hair reaching to their fingertips. Luke blinked at them vacantly.

"Nice hair," he remarked.

"Want to try it on?" Eulalia whisked the wig from their head and tossed it at him. He caught nimbly, and pushed his hood back. The wig fell smoothly upon his head, silky black hair tickling his cheeks, and Eulalia roared with laughter.

"All jokes aside," Luke said, pulling the wig off and handing it back to them. "Do you want to hear who the real killer is?"

"Did you really find her?" Eulalia's eyebrows shot up to their closely cropped fringe. "Luke Organa, you are utterly unreal. How did you do it?"

"I found Pooja's sister." Luke sat down at Eulalia's vanity as Lua helped another handmaiden fasten the wig back to Eulalia's head. "She works at the Gallery, and told me about Padmé Amidala. She mentioned Amidala had handmaidens, you know, like you do, and they often served as decoys."

Lua glanced up at him, her dark eyes meeting his. She looked back down at her mistress's wig, and continued to work.

"I know the decoy game well," Eulalia admitted, resting their chin in their hand with a frown. "I didn't think of that. One of Queen Amidala's handmaidens being the culprit. I guess it makes sense, considering the training we're all given when we take office. Lua's my usual decoy, but Lis and Lora switch with her sometimes."

"Are you Lis?" Luke asked the other handmaiden who was parting Eulalia's wig. She glanced up at him, her cowl shadowing her round face.

"Lee," she replied.

"Similar names, builds, appearances," Luke murmured, running his hands through his hair tiredly. "Quite a system you all have."

"Lua, Lis, Lora, Lee, Lian," Eulalia sighed, ticking off the names in the air with their finger. "Who's to say who the real queen is, really? I guess it was Padmé who started this trend. The monarch before her was a man, and he didn't have this grand issue with foreign politics invading our world and threatening us to the point where we need constant vigilance. I admire Padmé and all her handmaidens for all of their work. I'll be sorry if the first one I meet is one who I'll be sending to prison."

"I don't think Lord Vader intends on sending her to prison," Luke told Eulalia quietly.

The queen blinked at him. They took a deep breath and touched their forehead in exasperation. "That man," they murmured. "What a beast."

"I just spoke to him," Luke said. "I told him to bring Pooja into the throne room in thirty minutes. That was about… fifteen minutes ago."

"Are you actually insane?" Eulalia jumped to their feet, their hair half done up in a volumous pompadour. "What are you doing to do? You don't have this handmaiden with you, right?"

"She said she was turning herself in." Luke offered a shrug. "I imagine she's getting her affairs in order, since she has enough sense to know Vader's not much of a prisoner type. That's why I came to you. Can you contact Cassian?"

Eulalia tilted their head. They exhaled through their nose sharply, and tried to hide a smirk by whirling away. "You are impossible, Luke Organa."

"Is that a yes?"

"Where do you want him and when?" Eulalia smoothed back stray wisps of their wig behind their ears.

"Have him close by in say, twenty minutes? Get him by a window in the throne room. Sabé will know to jump."

Eulalia blinked at him, and they shook their head in disbelief. "This is a crazy plan," they told him. "Only an absolute madman would make this up. Do you even know the odds of this working out?"

"I expect you'd tell me if you had a droid around to give you the exact number," Luke said dryly. "But since you don't, we don't have to worry about that. Just trust me, okay?"

Lua and Lee exchanged a look behind their queen's back. They clearly had no intention of trusting Luke, and that was fine so long as Eulalia trusted him.

"If Vader kills us all, I suppose we can blame you?" Eulalia teased him, striding toward their vanity and lifting a comlink from within a decorated box that Luke thought might be for face powder. She tossed it to him.

"Blame away." Luke smiled weakly as he shrugged. "As long as we can get Sabé out of there before he kills her— which he will— then I think we'll be fine. He can't kill _us_ , not really. It'd start too much drama and the senate would never stand for it. The Emperor would have to choose between defending his home planet and defending Vader."

"That's fair." Eulalia looked at him, and their expression softened. "Luke, are you sure about this? This woman, Sabé… she's not Pooja. I don't have an excuse for defending her if push comes to shove."

"Then don't defend her," Luke said simply. "Condemn her to hell publicly, once this is all over. What counts is that you help her _now_ while she's still living enough to benefit from it."

Eulalia's dark eyes seemed stuck on his face, though their expression was unreadable. They held their comlink loosely in their hands, and said, "You are a good person, Luke. Better than most."

"I'm just trying my best, Lian," he said softly. He bowed his head in contemplation, and turned away from them. "Call Cassian. Make sure he's ready to do a hasty pick up and retreat."

Luke took a moment outside Eulalia's rooms to take a deep breath and rest his forehead against a cool stone wall. He was frightened, but he knew he could not shy away from his responsibility for Pooja and Sabé, not at this point. He rested his hand on the blaster Sabé had returned to him, remembering a time when she had taught him to use it. That felt like so long ago.

He'd always suspected she'd left him to go aid the Rebellion in some way, but this was truly not what he'd imagined their reunion to be like.

 _I can do this,_ he told himself.

The fact that he needed to tell himself anything proved that he was riddled with doubts, and the doubts would only grow worse the closer he got to Vader.

No one needed to know that, though.

When he descended the stairs, finally pushing the hood of his cloak back, he paused on one of the last steps as two Stormtroopers ran up to him.

"Sir!" cried one of them, his tinny voice registering with Luke as the trooper outside Pooja's door. "A woman is here claiming she is turning herself in. The woman you spoke about?"

Luke didn't dare breathe. He brushed past them, his cloak slipping behind his shoulders like a cape. "Where is she now?"

"She's being escorted to the throne room. To Lord Vader. As you suggested."

Luke grimaced, but did not wait around to consider the implications of that fact. He bolted as fast as he could through the ornate palace corridors, leaving the troopers in the dust. All of his nervousness subsided as he rushed upon the throne room. He was met with a brightly lit room, stone pillars lining each wall and allowing a path that opened up upon the throne, which was situated behind a desk. A massive window yawned behind it.

Standing before that massive window was Darth Vader. Luke hesitated, the deeply disquieting haze of terror and uncertainty falling over him like an oppressive shadow. It was a weight upon his ribs, and he once again forgot the mechanics of breathing.

Vader did not turn to face him when he spoke.

"You know this woman, Prince Organa." The statement was cold. Punctuated by a slow, pointed tone.

Luke saw Pooja sitting in one of the seats beside the throne, and he gained the courage to move forward.

"I think we are both well aware that I know Pooja Naberrie," Luke said, his footsteps echoing starkly in the deafening silence of this ancient room. The stone spoke as his heels clicked against it.

He stopped a few feet away from the throne. His eyes swiveled around the room nervously, as though he might expect to find Sabé's corpse hanging from the rafters. He was relieved to find it was just himself, Pooja, and Vader here.

"You are trying my patience." Vader did not turn to look at him as the door behind them opened. Luke didn't dare look back at it. "You know this woman. State yes, or state no."

Luke looked down at his feet as a Stormtrooper shoved Sabé to her knees in front of Luke, just inches from the queen's own desk. When he looked up, she was staring forward, her back straight and her shoulders squared.

"No, Lord Vader," Luke said finally, locking his hands behind his back. "I only met her last night, when I confronted her about the murder."

"And tell me…" Vader's head turned slightly. "How did you come to find her?"

Pooja was watching him. He could not meet her gaze, though he was grateful to see that she appeared unharmed, albeit a bit disheveled. He tried to focus on Vader's back.

"I did research," Luke said. "I knew Pooja was innocent— I mean, I _told_ you that, didn't I? So I did some research, and then tracked her down."

"You are trying to tell me your third rate investigation brought you to the doorstep of a known rebel sympathizer, and your good will and charm somehow convinced her to turn herself in?"

For a few moments, the only sound was Vader's respirator.

"I guess I'm just lucky," Luke said simply.

Vader turned to face him. It was as though the air in the room had gone still, and his lungs were screaming because they could not possibly inflate. Time had stopped. Nothing moved.

"That is a lie," Vader said coldly, "but I will deal with you later. Stand, Sabé."

Sabé stood, unflinching, with her chin held high. Her hair was still pulled back neatly, but the bun at the back of her head was more ornate. It was two rather elegant twists that were done expertly.

"Won't you let her speak?" Pooja asked suddenly from her seat beside the throne. Vader's head snapped in her direction, but Pooja did not balk, nor did she divert her gaze. Sabé looked at her, and without even seeing the turn of her lip or the batting of her eyes, he sensed her all-encompassing sadness.

"Why should I let a murderer and an impostor speak?" Vader turned his attention back to Sabé. "She knows she is a fake. She lived as a fake, and she will die as a fake. No words she has ever spoken have been her own. So she will die without a voice."

"Is it so necessary to kill her, Lord Vader?" Luke stuck his hand in his pocket, his thumb over the comlink Eulalia had given him. "Isn't that a bit hasty?"

"I for one would like to know why she did it," Pooja said, folding her arms across her chest. "However, I understand that motive interests you very little, Lord Vader."

"This is not the senate," Vader growled, his voice seeming to vibrate in the stone beneath their feet. "You cannot argue her life out of my hands. The handmaiden will die."

"Who told you she was a handmaiden?" Luke asked, bewildered. He remembered quite clearly Vader's complete disinterest in anything faintly resembling an explanation of who Sabé was.

"Do we know each other, Lord Vader?" Sabé took a step forward toward the window, peering closely at the man's haunting black mask as though it were some carnival prop instead of the face of the most fearsome man in the galaxy. "Funny. I'd think I'd remember you."

"You understand your position here, I expect." Vader turned his head away from Sabé's face. His back was to the window, and the red glass of his eyes seemed to glow. "You are presumptuous, you know. Using her name to commit a murder."

Sabé studied him. She turned her eyes to the throne, and rested her hand on the chair. "You know," she said airily, "I have not been in this room in decades? It has not changed at all."

Luke reeled back as Sabé knocked a hidden switch on the throne, and retrieved a small blaster. She shot it twice at Vader without blinking, and Pooja gasped as they watched the blaster bolts slide through the air, guided by some unseen hand away from Vader's breastplate and scorching the floor. Luke hit the button on his comlink and rushed forward as Sabé took another shot.

"Wait!" he cried, expecting Vader to launch forward and smash her face into the granite. He did not. He did not look at Luke, or even so much as budge an inch forward. All he did was lift up his left hand, and let his thumb and forefinger inch toward one another. Luke stopped and stared numbly.

The room, which had already felt so dark and heavy despite being so bright and airy, seemed to grow starker still. Luke watched in horror as Sabé's fingers lifted shakily toward her throat, small gasps escaping her lips as her face paled. She held onto the blaster in her hand, however, and lifted it shakily.

"Stop," Luke uttered faintly, standing uselessly behind the desk and staring with glassy eyes as his longtime friend and teacher was choked before him.

It had never been clear to him why no one dared to be defiant of Darth Vader, beyond his frightening appearance and rumored brutality. Now Luke understood, in no simple terms, just _why_ Vader was so terrifying. Sabé soft, sputtering gasps, the contortion of her features as she grappled with some unknown pain, it was magnified tenfold in the empty throne room. Luke felt that he could do nothing but stand there, even though he had pulled out his blaster the moment Sabé had begun to choke.

He felt it all. It was so much pressure, just looming over them, growing steadily tighter and tighter as it wound around Sabé's neck. He _felt_ that. It was all around him, rushing him like a rising tide, and he wished with all his heart that his father would come and whisk him away from the onslaught of the current, because it would surely pull him under and send him tumbling.

It had to stop. If he begged it to stop, would it stop?

No. Life didn't work like that.

What if he demanded that it stop? Would it stop?

No. Death didn't work like that.

What if he forced it to stop? Would it stop?

The silence rung in his ears like distant bells. He had not meant to close his eyes.

When he opened them, Sabé was doubled over, gasping for breath with her finger pressed to her throat. Vader was looking down at his hand. His fingers lay open, far away from one another.

Luke saw that he had dropped his blaster, and his own hand was wilting in the air. He didn't remember raising it.

Vader turned to look at him.

The glass behind him shattered.

Luke gaped as a shuttle descended before the massive window, ramp extended. A man in a Corellian cut jacket with a fur trimmed hood stood, blaster trained steadily on the window. Sabé raised her head shakily, took one look at the broken glass and the hovering ramp, and she leapt with the grace of a seasoned dancer through the broken window. She rolled onto the ramp, landing heavily as Cassian grabbed her arm and yanked her up the closing platform.

By the time Vader's head swiveled away from Luke, his focus broken by the roaring of an engine, the door had closed and the shuttle was shooting into the distance.

They stood in silence, cold air rushing in and oppressive energy rushing out. Luke felt so much better. He might have even been smiling, but he couldn't quite tell.

"What…?" Pooja exhaled beside him, her gaze lingering on the broken window dazedly. "What just happened?"

"I guess… she escaped?" Luke pressed his lips together thinly and shrugged. "Before that, though, I haven't a clue. But hey, didn't I tell you I'd save you?"

"I genuinely cannot believe it," she admitted. "Give me a moment…" Her voice faded off, and she took a rather large and deliberate step back from Luke.

"What?" He blinked at her confusedly. "What's wrong—?"

A sharp cry escaped his lips as he was snatched by the arm, a massive hand closing around his bicep harshly. He looked down at it in shock, his eyes slowly trailing up toward Vader's helmet which was impossibly close to his face. The hiss of his respirator seemed to echo louder now than ever before.

"What are you doing?" Luke gasped, pulling back wildly. His boots clapped against the floor as he backpedaled sharply, attempting in vain to wrench his arm from Vader's grip. "Let me go!"

"Where," Vader hissed, "did you learn that?"

Luke's eyes flickered dazedly over the man's helmet, his mouth falling open in bemusement and shock. He choked on a shout of pain as Vader's grip on his arm tightened significantly, and Pooja cried his name.

"Tell me." Vader dragged him closer, despite Luke's attempts to plant his feet firmly on the ground, and he nearly smacked headfirst into Vader's breastplate.

"I don't understand," Luke said, his voice small and thin. "I— I don't know what you're talking about!"

 _Calm down, remember yourself_ , a voice in his head that sounded a bit too much like Sabé told him.

Luke took a deep breath, and he looked up at Vader fiercely. "I am Luke Organa of Alderaan, and I have done nothing wrong! You cannot intimidate me, Lord Vader, I am not a child any longer!"

"You were as insolent as a child as you are now."

They stared at one another fixedly, and though the room had grown cold since the window had shattered open, there was ice between them now. Luke felt it like hoarfrost on the surface of his brain, and it made it so hard to think or feel or speak. He felt trapped. And then there was the stab of something else, something white-hot and malicious that probed at the surface of his mind like a fire-poker that had been left in the flames for too long.

All at once, Luke became aware of how dire his situation was.

 _My mind is a mountain,_ he thought furiously, tearing his gaze away. _I am a mountain. Nothing can get in. My mind is a mountain. I am a mountain. Nothing can get in._

He'd closed his eyes again, his mantra firm and resolute inside his head. He knew it well. He'd lived it well.

Vader caught his face in his gloved hand, jerking his head up so their eyes would meet once more.

"You're _shielding_ ," Vader seemed to breathe in disbelief, like it was a chore to speak. Luke stared at him, swallowing hard and the mountain in his head remained. "Who? Who taught you?"

Luke shook his face from Vader's hand. His mind was reeling.

He said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Vader grasped his other arm, and spat, "You are not shielding _that_ well, your Highness. I sense your lie, and you may think your feeble shield will save them from me, but you are wrong."

Luke shook his head. None of this made any sense, and he was suddenly more frightened than he realized he had ever been in his entire life. He remembered sitting in an interrogation chair as a child, this man at his back, a cold and smothering presence if he had ever felt one, but it was worse now.

Now they were aware of one another, and his darkness stung like frigid water on the coldest day of the coldest year.

Suddenly he was being dragged forward, and Luke shouted, and he writhed in Vader's grip, twisting to look at Pooja desperately. She had raced forward, her hands over her mouth, but she fell short.

"You can't just take him!" Pooja cried. Vader stopped, Luke in front of him, his fists wrapped firmly around his arms. "He is the heir to Alderaan, and the son of an Imperial senator! You have less of a cause to arrest him than you had to arrest me, and this injustice will not stand! No system, not in the Outer Rim, not here in the Mid Rim, and certainly not in the Inner and Core worlds, where Alderaan's influence is at its height, will stand for this dismissal of the rights of one of the most important children in the Empire!"

Luke looked back at her with wide, imploring eyes. He could hear his own breath, frantic and shaky as it alternated on cue with Vader's respirator.

Vader turned his head.

"Senator," he said briskly. "This is none of your concern."

With that, he shoved Luke forward roughly and dragged him from the throne room.


	4. Luke and Vader

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here is our grand finale! fair warning, this one is brimming with angst. i can't imagine any scenario where luke getting kidnapped by vader would end up happily, but it could certainly turn out worse, so! there's that.
> 
> if you're interested in following this series, the next story will probably focus on leia and obi-wan again. people keep asking me how far i'm going to go, and truthfully i'm not sure. i'd love to touch upon the movies, especially now that i've changed the universe even more than just simply "luke and leia switching roles." so that's probably what the future of this series looks like. thank you for sticking with it, and enjoy!

Luke had always loved space travel. He loved listening to the durasteel walls of a ship breathe as it left the atmosphere of a planet, and he loved looking out into the inky depths of space and wondering how far it could go, how far _he_ could go. He loved toying with the idea that one day he might be free to take a ship of his own and travel to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, to chart uncharted space, to adventure and wander and grow.

That had been a child's dream. A prince had no chance of becoming an explorer, and a prisoner even less so.

He sat on the floor of Vader's ship, staring down at his shackled wrists sullenly. He had struggled at first before realizing how utterly pointless it was. He'd already been captured, so he might as well retain some sense of dignity and not show the entire world how frightened he truly was.

These binders were taut on his wrists, and the longer he stared at them the more frustrated he became. Sabé had taught him how to fight with binders on, and even how to pick the lock which only required a long thin piece of metal. He'd been turning the silver broach that had clasped his cloak together in his hands for hours now, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

There was no escaping Darth Vader.

There was no escaping.

His heart sank lower and lower in his chest, until he felt as though he had no heart at all, and he was lost in the yawning abyss of Vader's shadow. There were no feelings, no thoughts, no humanity. Just the cold stretch of space and the prickling unease of silence.

In times of desperation, when Luke needed to be brave and strong and valiant, he thought of his father. He conjured up an image of a man so big and bold and brilliant that he cast an unwavering light across the galaxy like a Super Giant sun radiating from millions of lightyears away. That effortless eloquence and sobriety, that expertly commanding presence, it was something that Luke reached for desperately and tried to cloak himself in when he stood before some immensely scary obstacle and needed guidance.

This was not one of those times.

In times of great despair, when Luke needed to feel loved and needed and missed, he thought of his mother. He saw her face, her dark eyes shining as she cradled his head beneath her chin and let him curl up in her lap no matter his age, and in this great ocean of fear and rage and loathing he found comfort in that. He summoned the image of his mother on her balcony, pushing her veil away and unraveling the tight braids that gathered beneath it. He closed his eyes and imagined the feeling of them as he undid them for her, like silk ribbons between his fingers. The feeling of her hand against his cheek, rubbing away some stray streak of engine grease or smoothing back his unruly hair.

His chest was tight and his throat was tighter, but he dared not cry. Not here. Not now.

When he cried, he would be at home on Alderaan, and it would be in his mother's arms. Not the floor of Darth Vader's personal yacht.

He buried his face in his knees when he felt the ship shift into its landing gears. His cloak was pooled around him like a blanket, the only source of security he had and the only remnant of home he carried with him. He had studied the pale designs on the pale fabric closely in the last few hours, imagining their real life twins on Alderaan and relishing in the hope that brought him. At least Alderaan was out there. At least Alderaan existed. At least his mother and father were safe.

When they landed, Luke tried not to hold his breath. He tried to compose himself. That was hard. That was really hard. He felt like he was about to burst into tears at any moment, and the thought of facing Vader again made it hard to breathe.

He steeled himself enough that he was able to turn his head up ever so slightly in defiance when the man's shallow breathing apparatus shuddered closer.

"Get up."

Luke considered the benefits of _not_ getting up. Not getting up meant staying on the floor with his head in his knees and his cloak shrugged over him. Not getting up meant he could pretend this was all a bad dream. Not getting up meant not going with Vader, which was the best option in any case ever.

However, Luke was not stupid and he liked what little air was getting to his lungs at the moment, so he opted to stand up shakily rather than be forced to his feet.

Vader lifted his hand and Luke jerked back as the broach was torn from his fingers and flew into Vader's fist. He stood stunned and mute, blinking down at his empty hands and clenching his jaw tight.

"You are warned that any attempts at an escape will result in _severe_ punishment," Vader said. His fist tightened around the broach, and Luke watched helplessly as he released a twisted scrap of metal and cracked gemstones onto the durasteel floor.

Luke didn't think he'd gotten into his mind, so he had no idea how Vader had known about the pin becoming a lock-pick, but he didn't ask. Instead he just hung his head.

"Follow me."

Luke bit his tongue. So many snippy comments had sprung up behind his teeth, so many biting words that would get his neck snapped in a heartbeat. He struggled to keep his cloak on his shoulders as he followed Vader, and in the end he was forced to leave it behind as it slipped from his fingers and pooled on the cold floor by the exit ramp. When Luke tried to go back for it, Vader reeled him in like he was on an invisible leash and forced him to keep moving.

The first thing he was aware of when he moved down the ramp was the sudden wall of heat that radiated off the surface of the landing platform. The air around them was thick and almost noxious, to the point where the fumes made his eyes burn. He took a quick look around as they moved across the platform, and noted it was suspended over a bed of lava. How charming.

"Where are we?" Luke asked.

He was, of course, ignored.

There were no Stormtroopers guarding the entrance of the fortress as they entered, and as Luke looked around he realized that if he could remember his way back here then he would find the exit to the landing platform scarcely guarded. He made a mental note of all unique surroundings, though the walls and floors of the fortress were black, and thus the halls were alarmingly bleak.

As they walked, Luke grew increasingly aware of the fact that he was seemingly alone with Vader on some remote volcanic planet and the only person who knew he was even with Vader was Pooja Naberrie. Quite literally anything could happen.

How frightening.

Luke kept walking. He listened to the sound of his own quiet steps, and he tried to take comfort in the fact that he was moving and that he was breathing. Wasn't that enough for now?

"Whoever your master was," Vader said suddenly, his rumbling voice echoing sharply off the dark, cavernous walls, "they failed in teaching you to _not_ project your feelings."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Luke murmured.

Vader whirled around, his finger jerking in Luke's face as he tossed his cape behind him. "I know you are lying," Vader snapped, "and I will warn you now that any more of these lies will reflect unfavorably on you. If you have even a scrap of intelligence you will tell me what I want to know _before_ you are thrown to the Inquisitors."

Luke stood with his shoulders slumped and his eyes cast forlornly toward the binders around his wrists. Inquisitors. _Those_ beasts? He had never actually met one, but he had heard his father and Fulcrum condemn them enough to make him shudder at the thought of coming across one. And now he was apparently going to be the plaything of a whole pit of them, like a mouse in a nest of snakes.

He was suddenly very thankful that Fulcrum had never told him her real name. Had she known that it would come to this? Him and Vader alone in a dark, foreboding fortress with the threat of suffering dangling just before his nose?

Well, probably not exactly like this, but it had to be close.

"Can you explain to me what's happening?" Luke looked up at Vader helplessly, drawing his shackled hands closer to his chest. Vader merely looked down at him. "I know you think I'm setting up some elaborate ruse, but I have no idea why I'm here or what you're talking about. I'd demand to be let free or to see my father, but I know that is pointless. So I'll settle for some answers. Why have you taken me here?"

Vader did not move. It was not so much that he was frozen in shock, but more that he was pausing to consider that what Luke was saying might be true, and if that was the case then if _he_ wanted the answers he wanted he would need to actually explain some stuff. That alone was almost hilarious enough to make Luke laugh.

Almost.

"You are Force sensitive," Vader stated.

Luke blinked up at him.

"I'm Force… I'm what?" Luke's brow furrowed, and he leaned back on his heels. "I know the Force is some kind of religious aspect of the old Jedi philosophy, I mean… anyone alive during the Purge knows that, but… what does that mean?"

"You are not the brightest, are you?" Vader asked him coldly.

Luke couldn't find it in him to be insulted. He replied with a bitter smile, "Perhaps if your pal the Emperor didn't apply such heavy-handed censorship laws to the Jedi, the Force, and all things relative to those two, then maybe I'd be able to follow your absolutely nonsensical point of view!"

"The Force is not merely some Jedi construct," Vader hissed. "It is the world as we know it. It is what binds all the galaxy together, and for us few who can feel that energy, it is open to be wielded."

"So… you're saying I can feel that energy?" Luke sighed. "That sounds pretty subjective, and since I doubt there's some sort of test I can take that determines my supposed Force sensitivity, I would kindly request a shuttle home please."

"You _were_ tested." Vader sounded furious, and the waves of his anger made Luke close up. His whole body stiffened, and he stepped back in terror. "I could sense your potential from the moment I met you. I could feel you in the Force, and I know you felt me too. That is why you ran."

Luke stared up at Vader, his hands shaking as he clasped them tightly, trying to remain calm. He could not let Vader read him. Not now.

"You know this to be true."

Luke turned away. He stared at a dark, authoritarian wall, and he clenched his jaw shut. There would be no more questions about why he was here or what Vader would do with him. If he was here because Vader thought he was some sort of Jedi, then he was as good as dead.

With that, Vader continued to walk and Luke was expected to follow. He did. Every step felt heavier, like it might be his last.

The realization was beginning to settle in that it just might be.

"Will I get to see my father again?" Luke asked suddenly. "My mother?"

"You would be wise to forget they existed."

Luke exhaled shakily. The tears that he had been holding back since he had been tossed onto Vader's yacht were hot behind his eyes, and he swallowed hard. Holding it together was harder now than looking Vader in the eye. But he closed his eyes and he kept walking.

Vader stopped. They were standing before a large, menacing door.

"Tell me who taught you to shield," Vader said.

Luke took a deep breath.

"No," he said curtly. "I don't think I will."

Vader's fist smashed into a button on the wall beside the door. It slid open very slowly, the metal doors inching away from each other dramatically. A spindly Mirialan woman came sauntering out, a helmet tucked beneath her arm as she peered behind Vader at him.

"My, my," she cooed. "You didn't mention the fresh meat would be so _tiny_ , Master."

"Scrub him," Vader told her flatly, his voice nothing but a low hiss.

The Mirialan woman's smile was nauseating. She curled her long, thin fingers around Luke's shoulders and dragged him close to her.

"As you wish," she said.

Luke was dragged through the door without another word, and as it closed behind him his hopes for an escape grew more and more weary. The Mirialan woman had put her helmet on, though he could still see her yellow face and her yellow eyes as she peered at him. It felt more like she was leering really. Her nails were digging into his shoulder as she shoved him into a small, dark room.

"Strip," she told him.

He stood there, still shackled, and he glared at her. She rolled her eyes and waved her hand. The shackles fell at his feet.

"If you think you have a chance of escaping alive," she said, her voice tinged with malice and mirth, "you should really rethink your priorities and make the first one _survival_. Do you like living, little one?"

"I certainly like freedom," Luke replied coldly. "I don't consider them to be mutually exclusive."

She laughed. It was a cold, vicious laugh, the kind of mocking sound that came out of someone who knew they had all the power in the world over another person, and it was terrifying.

"Get undressed," she said, laying her hand on the disc at her hip. "I won't say it again."

Luke knew she would hurt him. She knew she would hurt him. The question was not whether she would hurt him, but rather how much pain he could take before he stripped or was forcibly stripped.

He decided he'd rather strip himself, with some shred of dignity left, than be stripped after a brutal beating.

His fingers fumbled with the laces of his jerkin, and he realized they were too shaky to really work right. He tried to ignore it. He was keenly aware of her eyes on him as he undid the laces and shrugged off the jerkin, tossing it onto the floor. His undershirt came off easily, and his trousers were thankfully just as easy to remove. He kicked his boots into the center of the pile and stood back. He let the entire room yawn between him and the Mirialan woman.

"Good boy," she cooed. She seemed to like to do that. It sent a chill down his spine.

She gathered up his clothes in her arms and disappeared, leaving him in the dimly lit room in his underwear with nothing to amuse him but a chair. He didn't even know when she was coming back.

He paced the room impatiently, visualizing his mountains and trying to figure out why Vader hadn't decided to interrogate him directly. Had he just given up on obtaining that information? Or did he assume Luke would talk in this prison cell?

"Damn," he murmured, running his fingers through his hair and glancing around the room. There was a camera in the far corner. He scowled at it, hunching a bit in shame. He then displayed a particularly rude hand gesture.

He kept pacing. He thought if he kept going that maybe someone would come eventually.

No one did.

He had no idea how long he had been in there, or how long it had been since the Mirialan left, but it felt like hours. He was cold, and he mourned the loss of his cloak silently as he sat down in the chair and frowned at the camera, his arms crossed over his chest for some bare modesty.

At one point or another he dozed off. In his dream, there was a girl in a ring of fire, and she looked at him and she began to scream.

He woke up with tears wetting his lashes and the door of his cell sliding open. He jumped to his feet.

The Mirialan threw a wad of clothes at him, which he caught and tugged on gratefully. It was a pair of very tight black pants and a very tight black shirt with a high neck. The fabric was breathable and thin. He tested his joints carefully, surprised by how easy they moved.

"You like?"

Luke glanced up at the Mirialan woman. She was smirking at him from the door.

"These don't feel like normal prison clothes," he said.

She stared at him for a moment, her eerie yellow eyes widening. Luke noticed for the first time that her sclera was black, which made her look even more intimidating. She crept forward, moving as deliberately as a spider as she inched toward him.

"Oh," she said in a breathless voice, "this is not a normal prison."

Luke took a step back. He noticed for the first time what was in her hands.

"Sit down," she said, raising the electric razor so its blades glinted in the dim light. "I'm going to tell you what you're here for."

Luke shook his head. He shrunk back into the farthest corner of the room he could. He felt like if he could just melt into the shadows or blend into the wall, maybe he would be saved, maybe he could escape.

But of course she just marched up to him, snatched him by the arm, and dragged him to the chair.

" _Sit_."

He was flung into the seat, which he found was bolted to the floor. That was a terrible sign.

He was also facing the camera.

Another terrible sign.

"I am the Seventh Sister," she said, dragging her fingers over his shoulders. "The Inquisitorius exists as the Empire's primary defense and offense against rogue Jedi. Obviously they're a bit few and far between lately, but we've managed. And you will too. All you need to do is Fall."

"I don't understand what you're saying," Luke said miserably.

The Seventh Sister snatched him by the hair and yanked his head back roughly. He couldn't help but shout as she leaned close to his ear and hissed, "I am going to let you feel a hundred deaths until you hate, and all you are is your hate and your fear and your pain, and when that hate becomes you then I dare you to make me stop."

Her voice was drowned out by the electronic whirring of the razor, which slashed roughly at his scalp. Luke sat in silence, shaking as he felt wisps of his hair fall away and the razor glide unevenly across his head. He was shaking so badly that he was scared she'd accidentally slice off one of his ears. He realized it was because he was crying, and he bit his lip as the whirring drowned out the sound of his quiet sobs.

* * *

"If it is Commander Sato again, please tell him that I can spare maybe three Hammerhead Corvettes, but no more. Perhaps Luke can devise a strategy to get them to him. Now, I really must finish this draft if I'm ever going to get it onto the senate floor."

Captain Raymus Antilles stood rigidly at the door of Bail's personal rooms. The _Tantive IV_ was his personal ship, though he planned on handing it over to Luke once he was officially Alderaan's senator. The crew was well aware of their role in their makeshift Rebellion, and every man on this ship was ready to die for the cause.

Bail Organa included himself in that number.

"Master _Organa_!" A gold protocol droid waddled past Captain Antilles, his arms raised as high as they could go in the air. "Oh, it's awful! What will they do with poor Master Luke now?"

Antilles's jaw clenched, and his eyes flashed dangerously at the droid. " _Threepio_ ," he barked. Beside him, R2-D2 warbled a mocking note.

Bail jumped to his feet, meeting his old friend's eye frantically. Antilles looked at him, remorse glinting in his gaze, and Bail braced himself against his desk, his knees wobbling pitifully and threatening to give out.

"I already have the coordinates punched in," Captain Antilles said softly. "I just need you to give me the order."

Bail dragged his hand down his face. He turned to look upon his unfinished draft, his train of thought derailed by the sudden imminent threat of his son, his poor, gentle, soft-spoken son, in the hands of Imperials. Luke didn't know enough of the Rebellion to give away their secrets, but if he let even a sliver of credible information slip, then that would spell the end for Bail's operations.

Luke would not talk. Bail realized this with a shudder of terror and pride. They would have to torture him.

They would torture him.

Luke would not talk, because though he was sweet tempered and had a gentle heart, he was his mother's son, and there was steel behind the softness of his smile and the kindness of his eyes.

So they would _torture_ him. Bail's son.

It would almost be easier if the boy would talk. Then Bail wouldn't have to imagine.

"Tell me what happened," Bail said, looking back to Antilles.

"If you'd pardon me for saying, sir, it really is simply awful," Threepio said wistfully. "Master Luke got involved with some nasty business on Naboo. Nothing good has ever come from Naboo."

Artoo whistled loudly, clearly offended by this remark, and he rammed into Threepio's side.

"What? Well, I didn't mean _you_. Not specifically."

Artoo's reply was a series of beeps that, if Bail could trust his rusty binary, boiled down to something akin to " _Never have I been so_ _ **insulted**_ _, never have I been so_ _ **betrayed**_ _, this is the end of days, truly, I cannot go on—_ " Ad nauseum. Bail had kept his distance from these old droids, so he always forgot just how bold this little astromech was. The little droid had picked up  _sarcasm._ Undoubtedly from Anakin Skywalker.

"Well don't be so dramatic," Threepio said stiffly. "As I was saying, Master Luke was on Naboo investigating some sort of unseemly murder involving the Nubian senator."

"Pooja?" Bail blinked, conjuring the image of the youngest Naberrie (barring the poor, unsuspecting twins born Skywalker), and finding that this whole situation grew more and more unsettling. "She was murdered?"

"She was the suspect, actually," Threepio said. "Very nasty business indeed. It seems that she was not the killer, but due to some misunderstanding she had to stand for her crimes before Darth Vader!"

Bail stared at the shiny golden droid blankly, his blood rushing from him and leaving him cold and afraid. He turned to look at Captain Antilles, who stood somberly in the entryway.

"Captain Antilles," Bail said, his voice tight, "please tell me that my son is not in the custody of Lord Vader."

"If only I could," Antilles murmured, bowing his head. "I'm sorry. We only just received news from the former queen, Eulalia. The agents on planet, Andor, Fardi, Haal, and Sabé, all escaped safely and checked in several hours ago, but Luke was arrested and taken into Imperial custody without any crime reported. Eyewitnesses say Vader simply grabbed him and dragged him away without being provoked."

It had happened. Their worst fear had been realized, and now he had to deal with the repercussions. Should he go with the diplomatic option and file a direct complaint, demand his son returned to him? No, that wouldn't work, and by then…

"Where was Luke taken, Captain?" Bail asked thinly.

"Reports say… he was taken onto Vader's personal vessel, so it is assumed… that Prince Luke has been taken to Vader's dwelling on Mustafar."

The word _Mustafar_ echoed in his ears. For a brief moment he saw the ghostly impression of Obi-Wan's face behind his eyelids, defeat heavy upon his shoulders and a haunted shadow in his eyes. He saw Padmé wan away in the matter of moments, like a flame dwindling under the vicious force of a gale. He saw Ahsoka, shaken and smaller than she had been in the years since they'd found each other in the Outer Rim, a small mountain of scarves swung around her neck and pooling around her lekku. She looked at him hard, pain flaring up in her eyes as though she had allowed herself to become a crucible, and she remained solid and resilient.

" _Mustafar is where Jedi go to die_ ," she'd said.

Bail opened his eyes. That changed things.

Drastically.

"Jump to hyperspace," he ordered Captain Antilles sharply. "Get us to Mustafar as fast as you can."

"Of course." Captain Antilles turned away and half jogged down the hall, shouting orders as he went. The droids remained.

Bail sunk into his seat once more, shaky and dismayed. There was a chance that he had already lost Luke. What a horrifying thought that was, that he had lost his son before he had even realized he was gone. His options were thinning out. He could recognize that, of course, he wasn't deluded enough to think he could wrangle his son from Darth Vader without a fight. Especially if Vader knew who Luke was.

Even if Vader didn't know, which was entirely possible considering the man's track record with collecting Force sensitive sentients, getting Luke back would be difficult. Technically Vader was legally entitled to Luke because of his Force sensitivity, which was why he had never been tested properly. The Inquisitors existed to either stamp out any remaining light in the Force, or to make more Inquisitors.

Luke wouldn't. Luke _couldn't_.

Could he?

"If you won't be needing us, sir," Threepio said, turning away, "we'll be going."

"Just a minute." Bail pointed at R2-D2. "I'd like the astromech for a few minutes. You may go."

Threepio reeled back, and he looked down the Artoo. He huffed as Artoo beeped another little taunt and wheeled forward.

"Not _useful_?" Threepio waved his arms up and down emphatically. "Of course I am useful, I am more useful than you! I am fluent in over six million forms of communication! You are nothing more than— than—! Well, I don't know what you are, but it certainly is not useful, I will tell you that much! How rude."

Bail might have smiled if he were not so desperate.

When Threepio left, Bail knelt before the little astromech and placed his hand on his dome. "I want you to record a message," he told him. "If I do not return from Mustafar, or if I die while I am there and don't manage to retrieve Luke, I'd like you to take a ship. Do not show this message to anyone. Do you understand?"

Artoo beeped encouragingly.

Bail stood, smoothing out his plain beige doublet. He took a deep breath, and nodded to the droid to start recording.

"General Kenobi," he began in a voice that ached with resignation but still rung true with strength. "If you are hearing this, then something terrible has happened to me. Our worst fear has been realized."

He recorded the rest of the message quickly, and told the droid to show it to no one except Obi-Wan Kenobi. After warbling in agreement, Artoo exited the room and left Bail to deal with the rest of this mess.

Next order of business was to quickly draft a revised final will and testament. After that, he commed Commander Sato and informed him of the delicate situation.

"If I am unsuccessful here," Bail said, "I need this Rebellion to continue on. Perhaps Fulcrum— the first Fulcrum, that is— can take over."

"She is certainly a strong asset," Sato said cautiously, "but she has none of the political prowess that you possess. Not to mention how much we rely on Alderaan's support financially."

"You will still have our support in all your endeavors," Bail said firmly. "Unfortunately, neither I nor Luke may be around to see it. If not, then Breha will do what she can. Perhaps you can speak to Mon Mothma? We are trying so hard to build this Rebellion, but if we do not unify, I don't believe we can win."

"On that note, you are correct," Sato admitted gravely. "However, individual rebel cells are just not big enough to unify and form a cohesive unit. Look at the Lothal rebels."

"Have faith," Bail said gently. "We will get there one day, even if I am no longer here to see it. I am sorry for the inconvenience this has brought you."

"What you are doing now is nothing short of madness," Sato said. He sighed very deeply. "However, I too have family. If they were in the position that Prince Luke is in right now, I would go to the ends of the earth to retrieve them."

"Thank you," Bail said quietly.

"May the Force be with you," Sato said.

Bail nodded. He closed the link and sank further into his chair. He didn't have enough time to make the plans he wanted to make. He always had contingencies, of course, in case he died unexpectedly, but none of those contingencies involved Luke no longer being his heir. Which was an option he did not want to ponder over.

Death or conversion. That was what this boiled down to.

Luke was stubborn enough to choose death, but not if he didn't know what he was fighting against. Perhaps he'd get too deep into the Inquisitorius before he realized that he had fallen. It was a frightening thought.

He left his rooms with his head high and his heart heavy. He would have to think fast if he wanted Vader to listen to him. He would have to be at the top of his game if he wanted to convince Vader to hand over his son. Their son.

That fact would be his wild card. He could not use it unless he was out of luck and at the end of his rope. It could spin either way.

"Sir," Captain Antilles gasped as they broke Mustafar's atmosphere. "Please take a squad with you. You don't know what you might face down there."

"I know that if my fate is to die at Darth Vader's hand," he said, resting a hand on Antilles's shoulder, "then no amount of blasters will save me."

Captain Antilles's face crumpled. He looked at Bail desperately, but did not object. Bail shot him a tight smile. Antilles turned away.

"Do we have clearance to land?" he called behind him.

"Go on," Bail said, releasing him so he could rush back to the yoke of the ship. Apparently they had been given clearance, because Captain Antilles set the _Tantive_ down on a landing platform adjacent to an intimidating black structure that seemed to jut out of the roaring lava rivers of Mustafar.

Bail took a deep breath. "Lower the ramp," he said. He did not meet anyone's eye as he stepped toward it. "No one follow me. This is a direct order."

"What if you are in trouble?" objected an officer to his left.

"Then I deal with that." He watched the ramp slowly descend. "If I am not back in an hour, I want this ship to return to Alderaan. Tell Breha that I am so, so sorry, and that I did everything I could to save Luke. Mourn us both, but keep the dream alive. Do not let what happens to us here be in vain."

* * *

Luke was heaving. He did not know how long he had been here, but it felt like hours, and he had cauterized welts all over his body. They made it difficult to move, but he had quickly realized that not moving meant possibly never moving again. So he moved.

The saber in his hand was red and burning, the heat of it beating off his face as he stumbled back upon every strike. This was one attacker. This was just the Seventh Sister. He had been fighting her for who knew how long, and he could no longer feel his fingers.

It was so heavy. His muscles were screaming in despair, unable to move correctly and blocking a swing so poorly that his fingers slipped. Another welt was added. He gasped, but he had lost his ability to scream.

She had been taunting him for a while now. He had stopped listening around the third or fourth hit, when the pain became unbearable and he focused on continuing to stand rather than hearing what she had to say.

Suddenly the Seventh Sister fell back, her blade disappearing as she knelt to the ground. The door behind him had slid open.

He whirled around, and he held the grip of the shoddy saber steady in his trembling fingers. The ominous red glow of it bathed the whole room in an odd filter of burgundy, like the black tiles had been awash in luminescent blood.

It was too bright to tell if the saber ended at a point, but if it did, that point was pointed directly at Vader's heart. If he had one.

"I want to speak to my father," he said. To his credit, his voice did not waver, though he did sound a little dazed and dull.

Vader stood before him, saying nothing for a few moments and instead observing Luke. His stance was horrible, as the Seventh Sister had remarked over and over, and if she had meant to kill him then he would have been dead a dozen times over. All of the searing welts that covered his arms and his back and his calves, they were warning strikes. This was what missing a block meant.

"Come with me," Vader said. He turned with a sweep of his cape and exited the room without another word.

Luke gaped after him. He absently lowered the saber, looking down at it in horror and disgust before he shut it off and tossed it aside. He hurried after Vader without so much as glancing back at the Seventh Sister. He did not care what she had to think about any of this. She had just taken far too much glee from his pain.

"I don't want to fight anymore," he declared. Vader paused for a moment, his steps faltering as he probably considered just straight up murdering Luke then and there. He did not.

"If you intended on dying," Vader said, "you could have let the Seventh Sister strike you down. She would have. Gladly."

"Yes, I'm aware," Luke said bitterly. He examined the bright red blisters that had appeared on the insides of his palms, half of them already busted and an angry amalgam of mangled skin. The saber had been too big for his hands, not to mention the heaviness of it had caused him to try readjusting his grip too many times during a grueling fight. Keeping hold of it had been difficult. "I don't want to die, but I don't want to fight either. Why don't you just lock me up like a normal prisoner? I have no interest in being your soldier."

"Why not?" Vader demanded, his voice low and brisk. It caught Luke by surprise. "You have the talent for it."

Luke couldn't help but reel back, his heart sinking and the blood in his veins going icy. No one had ever told him he had a talent for violence before. They had praised him for his ingenuity, for his quick wit and unbreakable spirit, for his nimble fingers and skill with a wrench, but he had never been told he had the talent for war before.

He was, quite frankly, _pissed_.

"Why don't we begin with the fact that I have been detained against my will without cause, and you are violating my rights by keeping me here."

"You forfeit your rights because you are Force sensitive," Vader replied coolly. "That is how it works. Your father knew that, which is why you were never properly tested. However, now you belong to me."

"I don't _belong_ to anyone," Luke snapped. He was weak, and he felt certain he might collapse if he was attacked again, but that would not stop him from glaring at Vader's back defiantly. "I am not your slave, and I will not fight for you!"

Vader did not reply. He merely marched forward, his cape billowing behind him. Luke couldn't help but feel an unbearable sense of shame and terror, like he had given up a part of himself to this monster just by _staying alive_ in this place.

Vader had not tried to get into his mind, not since they had arrived. Luke had been imagining mountains to the point where he felt he could comfortably remain landlocked for eternity, and that would be fine. However, he was nervous. He had let himself slip before.

He wondered if he would ever see Fulcrum again. There were so many questions that he had now that he knew all those days of meditating had amounted to building mental shields against Darth Vader. Had she known that this would happen? Was that why she'd never told him her real name?

Luke followed Vader silently as he marched through corridor after corridor. Part of him wondered if they were even in the same building anymore. It seemed like Vader's fortress was just a maze of long black hallways that led nowhere.

Being a prisoner was more frightening than he'd imagined. He'd always thought that faced with this situation he'd be braver, and he'd hold his head high, and he'd declare to all who'd hear him that he would not balk and he would not fall. But stepping in time just behind Darth Vader's billowing cloak made him feel small. He stared at the black tile floor, his body hardly remaining upright as he drifted from one hall to the next, and he realized that he was moving without thinking or feeling.

This was the way of a survivor. Only fools talked back and rebelled when in prison.

The final corridor opened up to a large, empty chamber. The ceiling was so high that when Luke looked up, he could only see the gaping darkness of the tiles absorbing all available light.

" _Luke_!"

He tore his eyes away from the abyss above him, looking past Vader's broad shoulders and nearly falling to his knees in shock. He was enveloped in the downy feathers of hope, his heavy heart lifted up and taking its rightful place back in the pit of his chest. Tears burned his eyes as he stood, small and ragged, his bare feet curling against the icy floor.

"Papa?" he said faintly.

He could see his father's eyes, huge and horrified and hopeful all at once, and when he took a step forward his heel clapped against the tile and echoed into oblivion. And Luke knew that he was real.

"Papa!" Luke cried, darting past Vader and running the length of the grand hall, his bare feet clapping against the ebony stone and the shock of the movement shuddering through him like bursts of electricity.

His father threw his arms out, catching him into a great folding embrace that scooped him up so his toes just barely grazed the floor. For the first time in what felt like an entire _day_ , Luke felt warmth, and he felt it so purely and so fully that he found himself grinning into his father's shoulder, grasping a fist full of his cloak and holding on for dear life. His father's hand swept over his newly shaven head, cupping the base of it and stroking the stubble absently with his thumb.

"Luke," he murmured into his ear, holding him tight enough that he felt safe, but loose enough that he did not agitate Luke's fresh wounds.

"I am growing impatient, Organa," Vader's voice rumbled. It was thunder in the dark, and Luke felt it in his very soul.

His father let him down gently, his hand still hovering protectively near his head as he stared Vader down. Luke held his cloak as he turned back to face Vader, fresh defiance rising up within him.

"Luke," his father whispered, "get behind me."

Luke looked up at Bail confusedly, his eyes darting between him and Vader. He didn't think his father could stop Vader from taking him back to that cell even if he had a blaster hidden somewhere beneath his cloak.

He took a step back, and his father's arm hovered over him protectively.

"Before I tell you," Bail said calmly, "you do understand that this changes nothing. She will still be dead."

"Spit it out, Organa."

Bail exhaled, and it was a short and resigned sound. "Padmé Amidala died in childbirth," he said.

Luke looked up at his father sharply. He peered past his extended arm, up at his impassive face, and he stared at him in disbelief.

"That," Vader hissed, "is _impossible_."

"I told you," Bail said firmly. "I was there. I saw it happen. Now will you allow me to leave with my son?"

Luke stood very still. _Padmé Amidala died in childbirth_. Why did it always seem to return to Padmé Amidala? Who, if he remembered correctly, had been pregnant at her funeral. What was this about? Why did Vader care so much about Padmé Amidala?

Now that he thought about it, Vader had consistently been overly concerned with the late former queen of Naboo.

"If you were there," Vader said, his voice suddenly booming, "then you saw my child. What happened to my child?"

The words were at first so distant that he felt like he had not truly heard them.

And then he thought about it.

And then he looked at Vader, and he withheld a scream.

Bail was quiet.

 _Speak_ , Luke thought, his mind ticking through all the possibilities, all the truths that had been left unsaid over his entire life. _Tell the truth._

Bail closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.

"Your child is dead," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."

He felt cold again. A chill had passed through him, and he shivered, pulling his hands to his lips shakily and biting his tongue hard. He could not shake this feeling of disgust and disbelief that was clawing at his insides. His mind was a mountain, but it was also the deep reflective lakes of Naboo, and if he looked inside them, he knew what he would see.

Suddenly his father was choking.

Luke pried his hands from his mouth and shouted, " _No_!"

Bail Organa dropped to one knee, one hand trembling toward his throat while the other still attempted in vain to shield Luke from Vader. Luke caught his arm and tried to steady him, staring into his horror-stricken eyes and tearfully shaking his head.

"Stop," he murmured. His father was still choking. He could feel him convulsing, and the whole room seemed to grow bigger as Bail dropped both his knees and collapsed to the floor. Luke pulled his head into his lap, and he cried, " _Stop_! Stop it! If you kill him, you'll never know the truth!"

His father had gone limp. Luke stared down at him, and then turned his head up toward Vader fearfully. He had stepped closer, moving dangerously close, with his helmet lowered as he seemed to glower down at Luke.

"What truth?" Vader demanded. "Did he _lie_ to me?"

Luke gritted his teeth, and he pulled his father's arm over his shoulder. "He's a braver man than I am," he said, shooting a chilly look up at Vader. "I will tell you the truth, but I will also tell you this. I am leaving with my father, and if anything happens to either of us, our ship, or if he dies— well, then you will never know your child. You will rot for eternity without ever knowing them. I swear this to you, by all the stars in the sky, and by the Force itself."

Luke did not wait for a reply. He hefted his father up, finding him to be alarmingly heavy, and he dragged him toward the door behind him. Vader did not move to stop them. Perhaps the truth had shocked him enough that Luke could get away with it.

He didn't know how he knew how to get to the _Tantive IV_ , but he managed it. He dragged his father to the ramp, which had extended the moment he had stepped out into the muggy atmosphere of the volcanic planet. Half a dozen men came rushing to greet him, pulling Bail from his shoulder and hoisting him up.

"Someone get a medic!"

"I've got a med-droid on stand-by!"

"Prince Luke, what happened? What's his condition?"

Luke trudged mutely up the ramp. He did not quite hear who had addressed him or why. He stumbled into the ship, and stared vacantly at the blindingly white walls. He felt like he had just been torn from the pits of hell itself.

"Prince Luke…?" Someone touched his shoulder gingerly, and his black shirt shifted to reveal the angry red welts that had formed beneath the tears in the fabric. "Shit! Get the med-droid to take a look at the Prince, too! Do we have any bacta patches on hand?"

"I'm fine." Luke shrugged the hand off and turned to face the nearest officer. "My mother. I need to speak to my mother."

"Queen Breha is being informed of the incident as we speak."

"Not about my father's condition," Luke said tiredly. "I need to talk to her. I need a secure location and line. Captain Antilles?" He looked around, and saw that the man was nowhere to be seen. "Where is he?"

"Piloting the ship, your Highness."

Luke sighed. His father was no longer here either. He did not know where he'd been taken, but he had a feeling he would not be seeing him for a while.

"I'm going to my father's quarters," he informed the nearest officer. "Do not disturb me unless there has been a change in my father's condition. Please."

"Of course, your Highness."

Luke stood dazedly for a few moments before setting off. He had to lean against the wall a few times as he struggled toward his father's rooms aboard the _Tantive_ , his vision swimming from the pain, exhaustion, and emotional turmoil that shuddered within him.

Finally, he collapsed at his father's desk. He set his head down in his arms, and he took deep, unsteady breaths. He didn't know what to do. He had no idea if his gamble would pay off. His heart was aching, and he knew that he would not be able to mend what had been broken, not in this life or in a thousand lives, and that terrified him.

He pulled his head up shakily as his father's comm chirped a ring of an incoming call. The holo screen lit up, and Luke found himself greeted by his mother's soft face and warm eyes. They crumpled in absolute horror the moment she looked at him, and her gasp was like a blade through his heart. He shrunk away.

"Luke?" she uttered softly, her fingers reaching for her own screen and faltering. "Luke, what's happened? Your— your hair, and…" She trailed off as he straightened up, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

"Mama," he whispered, his voice cracking pitifully. "Mama, why didn't you ever tell me?"

There was a bleak, empty silence.

"Tell you...?" Breha sounded confused. Luke couldn't find it in him to be angry with her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he breathed. "Why didn't you tell me that Vader is my father? That Padmé Amidala was my mother?"

When he opened his eyes, Breha looked at him with so much pain and regret shadowing her beautiful face, that Luke found himself wallowing in the sorrow of knowing how much he had just hurt her.

"There was never a right time," Breha said very quietly.

Luke stared at her. He couldn't help the tears that welled up in his eyes and fell to his cheeks. He folded his hands over his mouth and bowed his head low.

* * *

All he knew was white. It was stark and it was blinding. He felt consumed by it, like a pale light had come to him and pressed itself into his eyes. It felt so permanent, as though it had been white forever, and forever it would be.

He was aware of little. The heaviness of the white light humbled him, and his senses returned gradually.

And then very suddenly he was aware of how awful he felt.

The heaviness that passed over him now was one of lucidity. He was aware now that he was lying down, the stinging scent of bacta lingering in his nostrils. His eyes fluttered open, and the whiteness remained.

"Breha…" he managed to murmur.

There was a sudden pressure on his hand, and he blinked rapidly. He turned his head, and he winced.

"Don't move," his wife said, her warm hand cupping his cheek. "Your throat is still healing."

Bail stared dazedly at the white ceiling, and the vague memory of a massive black room and Luke's gaunt face. He inhaled sharply and attempted to sit upright.

"Bail," Breha gasped, grasping his shoulders and pushing him back. "Bail, what are you doing?"

"Luke," he croaked. " _Luke_..."

When you raise a child from infancy, you have seen them through every range of emotion they can possibly feel. Bail had seen Luke at his worst, sick in bed as a toddler, beleaguered and lost as an adolescent.

In this faint memory, his salient blue eyes were dull and wet. He looked up at Bail in a daze, his pallid face stark in the darkness of Vader's fortress. Dark stubble remained on his scalp where his honey colored hair had once been.

Breha helped him sit upright. He saw her then, and he stared at her puffy eyes and her dark veil. He searched her face wildly.

"He's gone," he whispered.

Breha stared at him. Her brow knitted together bemusedly, and she gripped his hand tighter. "Luke is _fine_ ," she told him firmly. "You saved him. Be proud of that fact."

Bail sank into the pillows that Breha had propped up behind him, his mind swimming from the drugs that had been pumped into his to minimize the pain in this throat. He looked at Breha in pure disbelief, a tremulous smile rising to his lips.

"He's okay?" he said faintly. "He… Vader let him go?"

Breha pressed her lips together thinly. She looked past Bail, as though whatever was behind him interested her more than his face at the moment.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"What?"

Breha's dark eyes flashed to his. Her expression was stony. He knew this expression well. It was the face she threw on when some diplomatic discussion had gone sour.

"Bail, I have no idea what happened between you, our son, and Darth Vader," she said. "He would not tell me."

"He— he what?" Bail touched his throat gingerly and found a bandage there. "Why?"

Breha watched him dully. She leaned back, her hands cupping his, and she shook her head in disbelief.

"You don't know," she said suddenly, her eyes widening. "But… if you didn't tell him…"

"Tell him? Tell him what?"

Breha sighed. She dragged her thumb along the ridges of his knuckles gently, stroking the back of his hand before bringing it to her lips.

"He knows," she murmured against his skin.

Bail stared at her. His mind was swimming from the drugs and the shock of it all. He rested his head back, and he gazed up at the ceiling dazedly.

"He knows…?" Bail closed his eyes. "No. That's not possible."

"Did Vader… say anything…?"

"No." Bail couldn't quite shake his head, so instead he glanced at her sharply. "The reason this happened in the first place was because he believed his child to be dead. He couldn't have known."

"Well," Breha said stiffly, "it doesn't really matter now. Luke knows. We need to adjust accordingly."

It was times like these that Bail imagined throwing composure to the wind and simply just _screaming._ He knew it would get him nowhere, and it would not make him feel any better, but after all that had happened he felt hopeless.

"He knows," Bail breathed. "Where is he now?"

Breha smiled down at him fondly, her head bowing so her forehead pressed against his. "He's been by your bedside for days now, Bail," she said. "He offered to hold court in my place for the day, so I could be with you."

The relief that passed over him just then nearly made him weep. He was overwhelmed with pride, with warmth, the love of this action dulling all other senses and amplifying his adoration for his son.

"Has he rested at all?" Bail swallowed hard, and it ached. "He… he must rest. I don't know what Vader did to him, but it had to have been trying."

"He hasn't spoken of it."

"You saw him, didn't you?" Bail sighed. "I know… I understand it was foolish of me to go after him… but seeing him… seeing what Vader had done to him in just mere _hours_ … Breha, can you imagine if he'd had him for days? Weeks? Months, even, knowing how the Imperial judicial system works?"

"I don't blame you," Breha said. "I never blamed you for a second. Bail, you brought our son home _safe_. He's a bit shaken, and the medic said the burns will scar, but he still has a future. You gave that to him."

Bail was amazed. He sat and stared ahead of him, too shocked to speak. They sat for a few minutes in silence, and he leaned against Breha gratefully.

"I need to speak to him," he murmured finally.

"You will."

"Does he hate me? Does he hate us for not telling him?"

Breha took his face in his hands, and she said steadily, "If you think Luke could ever hate us, you don't know him very well at all."

Bail had no reply to give. The more he thought about it, the more he knew she was right. It did not settle his nerves, but it was a comfort nonetheless.

Breha stayed with him for a few hours, filling him in on all that he had missed while he'd been asleep. Vader had not tried to contact them in that time, but Breha had already made arrangements for Luke to be spirited away if need be. Bail did not know where, and Breha did not tell him. He did not ask.

It was better this way.

Breha stood very suddenly, her hand still clutching his. Bail could not see the door, but he knew someone had come in. His wife patted his hand gingerly, and she disappeared from his sight.

Bail sat for a moment, puzzled and unsure. Then he called out, "Luke?"

He heard a shaky breath, and then some small footsteps that grew gradually louder. The chair beside his bed creaked. Bail strained himself to look.

Luke's eyes no longer looked hollow and dreary, but there was still a distinct sadness in them. He hunched over in his seat, his livery seeming rather ill-fitting. The stubble on his scalp seemed blonder in this light, though it was still jarring to see nothing there.

They sat in silence. It was a long, uncomfortable silence. Luke did not look at him. Bail could only stare.

Had Vader truly driven such a wedge between them without even knowing it?

Secrets were poison, it seemed. A slow acting poison, but a poison to be true.

"Luke," Bail began quietly.

Luke shook his head fiercely. Bail swallowed back his words, but Luke kept on shaking his head. Then he bowed forward, and buried his face in Bail's blankets. Bail blinked down at him, and he very gingerly stroked the back of his head. The stubble was soft, if not a bit bristly.

As Luke cried, silently at first, but then audibly sobbing and visibly shuddering, Bail imagined a world where Darth Vader did not exist. Where Anakin Skywalker had died on Mustafar, and Bail could have taken in both twins, and nothing like this would have ever happened.

"Luke," Bail whispered, the sound of his son's soft sobs bringing tears to his eyes. "It will be okay, Luke. We'll be okay."

"Are you _kidding_?" Luke raised his head, and Bail was stunned to see his red, tear-streaked face contort angrily. "Papa, when Vader realizes you're alive, he's going to come. He's going to kill you!"

"You don't know that," Bail sighed.

"You're right." Luke sniffed, and he wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. "I don't. I don't know _anything_."

Bail winced. There it was. That bitterness that Bail had been quietly anticipating for years as he tried to prepare for the day when he'd have to tell Luke the truth. It hurt that he would never get the chance to do the right thing here.

"Your mother told me that… that you know." Bail took a deep breath. "How?"

Luke stared at him with wide, incredulous eyes. "You're kidding," he said flatly. "My birth father is _Darth Vader_ , and your concern is how I found out? Not if I'm even okay with that information? Because newsflash, Papa! I'm not okay with it!"

"Of course I know you're not okay with it," Bail muttered, folding his hands over his stomach and frowning. "I'd be worried if you were. But I can't do anything about it, Luke. It's not your fault that Vader— that it turned out this way. But it's important that I know how you found out. Did… did he tell you?"

"What?" Luke blinked. "No. He doesn't even know. I figured it out from when you were talking to him."

Bail stared at him blankly. "You figured it out," he said flatly.

"Yes?" Luke tilted his head. "You were talking about Padmé Amidala dying in childbirth and being there when it happened. I had just spent an entire day researching Padmé Amidala, and I kept getting this _feeling_. I can't explain it. Something like a tugging, or a longing maybe? Every time I looked at her I felt so lost. So then you brought her up to Vader of all people, and apparently he was the father of her child? And I was just standing there, and I realized it had to be me. Who else could it be?"

Bail pressed his lips together thinly. It hadn't been a particularly large jump, but he had definitely jumped to conclusions without any evidence. He had been completely right, of course. Bail had known enough Jedi to understand it was some sort of Force thing.

"You're not wrong," Bail admitted.

"I know I'm not." Luke frowned. "Mama told me the truth immediately when I asked her. She's been apologizing to me for days, you know. For never telling me."

"Do you understand why we kept it a secret from you?"

"Well, yeah." Luke sighed. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Of course I _get_ it. It's awful, and I'm angry, but I can't say I really blame you for any of it. Vader is… scary. He knew so much from just _looking_ at me, and… if I had known he was my father… especially when I was younger? He'd know."

"That's why we never told you." Bail closed his eyes, and he sighed deeply. "We don't know how the Force works. Even with Ahsoka's help, I don't think we fully managed to get you closed off from his reach."

"Ahsoka…?" Luke's eyes flashed wide in sudden recognition. "That's Fulcrum, isn't it?"

"It is," Bail said gravely. "You better keep that secret locked tight in your head, Luke."

"Vader's not finding out anything from me," Luke said firmly. "Now that I know… I mean, not about Vader, but about the Force… I think I can focus more so he can't get secrets from me."

Bail swallowed, his throat tight. He took his son's hand and closed his eyes. "I hope so," he murmured. "For all of our sakes."

Luke sat quietly and gripped Bail's hand in his. He seemed to shrink, his bright blue eyes dimming as he stared at Bail. What had happened here… it had harmed Luke. More than Bail could possibly say.

"My mother," Luke whispered. He winced, and he shook his head furiously. "Not Mama. My other mother. Can I… can you…?"

Bail smiled. He squeezed Luke's hand reassuringly, and he said, "I have wanted to tell you about her for years, Luke. You are so much like her."

And just like that, all the light that had been missing from his eyes seemed to flood back into them. He looked at Bail like a star had sparked into life behind his wide gaze. "Really?" he gasped.

"She was pragmatic, loyal, and kind to a fault," Bail said. He looked at Luke, and not for the first time he tried to find a trace of his old friend in his features. He had a mole on his cheek and a slim nose, but otherwise he was all Anakin Skywalker. Bail wondered what his twin looked like. "When she was fixated on something, there was no stopping her. And best of all, she truly believed in the goodness of humanity. She dedicated her life to bettering the galaxy. And when she died, she died loving you."

Tears slipped against Luke's cheeks as he leaned forward, hanging on Bail's every word. Bail had no idea what had happened to Luke on Naboo, or what version of Padmé he was imagining, but he was glad that he had the opportunity to tell him. It had never bothered Luke that he would never know anything about his birth parents, but it bothered Bail that he would never know how brave and beautiful his birth mother had been.

"She… she lived long enough to know me?" Luke murmured.

"She lived long enough to name you."

Luke exhaled shakily. He turned away from his father, wiping his tears hastily. "Oh," he said faintly.

"I'm sorry, Luke."

Luke blinked down at him, and he offered a shaky smile. "Papa," he said, "don't you know? I'm so happy. I feel like I have a guardian angel."

It was a touching sentiment, though Bail wasn't thoroughly convinced. Luke's smile was tight, and his eyes were downcast.

"Vader is bothering you," Bail observed.

Luke winced. He pulled back, slipping his hand away from Bail's and hunching over. "Vader," Luke repeated. "How can he be my father? I don't understand."

"It was a long time ago, Luke," Bail said heavily. "He was a different man."

"So my mother actually _loved_ him?" Luke shook his head. "I can't imagine— I mean, he's so terrifying—"

"Like I said." Bail looked up at the ceiling and tried to recollect the last happy memory he had of Anakin Skywalker. It was difficult. "He was a different man. Even Vader loved once. Even Vader was loved once. But those days are long gone."

"Are you saying he can't be saved?"

Bail looked at Luke so sharply that he turned his head, and he hissed in pain. Luke quickly grasped his shoulders, peering at his face fearfully. Bail took a deep breath as the pain subsided.

Did Luke honestly just ask him that?

Oh, this boy.

"You really are so much like her," Bail murmured, pressing his hand to Luke's cheek. "Do _you_ think he can be saved?"

Luke stared into his eyes, and Bail was stunned by the intensity of them. Luke looked down at him, and he looked as though he had the certainty of every god in the galaxy on his side.

"I believe that everyone deserves a chance to be saved," Luke said as though it were the simplest thing in the world.

"Vader is not everyone."

Luke closed his eyes. "I don't know," he admitted. "I don't know if he can be saved. Truthfully, Papa, he scares me."

"I'd be worried if he didn't."

Luke rolled his eyes. "Papa, I'm serious," he gasped. "I want to believe that there's good in him. I know that sounds so utterly naïve that you think I must have lost my mind, but I can't help it. He is vile, and he is cruel, and he would kill me without a second thought, and yet I want to know him. How awful is that?"

"Is that what's bothering you?" Bail blinked at his son and scoffed. "Luke, you are such a naturally curious child that I'd be shocked if you _weren't_ curious about Vader. He is your father, whether we like it or not. But you have no obligation to him. You do not need him. And though I cannot stop you from pursuing this thread that will lead you down the path of heartache, as it did Padmé, I will give you my advice. Everyone I've known who ever knew Vader, who ever loved him, are either gone and dead now because of him, or have led the most miserable existence in absolute sorrow. Be wary of that path, my son. And never forget, it is Alderaan that raised you."

"No," Luke said. "Not Alderaan. It was you and Mama that raised me, and it will be you and Mama first. You will always be first."

Bail was bewildered, but absolutely touched by Luke's words. He smiled as Luke scooted onto his bed and laid down beside him, resting his cheek on his shoulder and closing his eyes.

"You understand what will happen if Vader ever finds out," Bail murmured.

Luke did not answer. Instead he turned his face toward the ceiling, and he said, "Can you tell me more about Padmé Amidala?"

It was not exactly the reassurance Bail had wanted, but he couldn't help the small smile from touching his lips. He was more than happy to oblige.


End file.
